Project Story Boost
Project Story Boost
EDU 245-82A
Dr. McCracken
During this semester, instead of working with students at Frances Slocum Elementary
school, I worked with Kindergarten students at Allen Elementary school. After reading with
some of the students and having grand conversations with them, it was evident that they were not
practicum experience, that the kindergarten students in the class I worked with, are rarely read
aloud to and discuss literature. When they are read aloud to it is often through the means of a
This experience made me realize just how important reading with students and reading
aloud to students is at a young age. When students are not used to being read to and talking about
literature, they get left behind when it comes to making progress in reading. Students in my
practicum placement whose parents read to them at home, are able to read at higher levels and
have more to say when discussing literature as a class or on an individual basis. Students who are
not read to, get left behind in their reading and often get frustrated and therefore they struggle to
As I had grand conversations with my students, overtime they were able to answer
questions such as who their favorite character was and why, what the main theme or lesson of the
book was, and what their favorite part of the book was. The students grew in reading levels over
the time that I worked with them. Story boost is a positive project to administer to kindergarten
students. Students who are not read to at home, get to be read to in a positive way by college
students. Students are able to learn to love reading more as they go through the process.
When I read to my students, they often became distracted or would start to get off topic
and I would have to help them get back on track. One student, consistently had a lot of energy
and had trouble paying attention so when she got too excited and off topic, I would have her take
The students loved being read to and looked forward to it, and because I was also
working with these students as a whole class, sometimes I was able to read aloud to the whole
class, and demonstrate more of what a read aloud should look like so hopefully my teacher will
incorporate that herself instead of the videos. I also was able to provide an example of the grand
conversations with all of the students in my class. The students would all participate and want to
I learned through this experience how important it is for students to be read to. My
kindergarten students were not able to understand and handle discussions about the books
because the students are barely read to at home and at school. All teachers should incorporate
more reading, especially read alouds. I wish I was able read with the students at Frances Slocum
because I feel that my responses would have been more positive. But through completing the
story boost project at a school that is not used to it, I found how important it is for something like