Jennifer Rheaume

EDU 245-82A

Dr. McCracken

Project Story Boost Reflection

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

used to discussing books through a grand conversation. It became clear to me through my

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

video that is quite monotone and dull.

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

read almost all of their schooling.

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

a deep breath or two and then she was able to refocus.

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

answer my questions and responded well to the book choices.

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

story boost to be done in every school.