I understand where you're coming from. I teach in a highly ESL
area (about 90% of my students are ESL), and my kids have very
little home support. It was disheartening to learn some kids in
my class last year had NO books of their own at home. Parents
would just wait for our weekly bookbags to be sent home and that
was it. It's important to remember the fact that many children
are NOT being read to on a daily, or even weekly basis at home,
and that we (teachers) are doing the best we can. We offer
workshops to parents, but find, again and again, it's the
families who ALREADY work with their children at home who are
the ones who attend the workshops. My principal often
says 'these kids are running at a moving target.' They're
starting school far behind their peers at other schools, and,
like the original poster said, we are only a piece of the
puzzle. I think of Kindergarten as planting the seeds -- if we
give them a good base in letters/sounds/phonics and phonemic
awareness skills, then even if they're not actually reading by
the end of K, the seeds are planted and they'll 'bloom' in grade
one.

On 11/07/09, laura/md wrote:
> Please continue to let them read to themselves, even if they
> are not matching word for word. In your groups or whole group
> time, continue to model or have kids model with big books,
> actually reading the print on each page. They will catch on
> and more importantly, they will learn about telling a story
> through the print and the pictures (not just the pictures). It
> does take a lot of practice. I teach a higher SES group but I
> see similar behaviors in that level of kid. Most of them will
> not even look at the words unless it is a book they find very
> easy so make sure you give them lots of lower books in their
> book boxes. Most of my lower kids will lose a few levels over
> the summer, too. You have to have faith that it will all click
> again when they begin instruction in first grade.

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