This week, we’re helping two literacy projects: a Bronx middle school teacher needs materials to boost her students’ reading levels, and an Iowa elementary school teacher needs more books. We hope that readers who support quality public school education will help by sharing or supporting our featured projects.
The Inoculation Project is an ongoing, volunteer effort to crowdfund science, math, and literacy projects for public schools in low-income neighborhoods. As always, our conduit is DonorsChoose, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation that facilitates tax-deductible donations to specific, vetted projects in public schools.
Good morning! We’ve been doing this since 2009, in good times and bad, and as we enter what looks like a bad time for public education, we’re more committed than ever to doing something each week to help at the level of individual classrooms. Anyone can play — come on in!
We have a new project this week! New York City is not an area we visit a lot in this series, but many parts of the city have schools that meet our criteria, sometimes famously so.
Ms. Rampersad is working with middle school students in the Bronx who need extra help with reading. She needs materials to help them advance.
PROJECT #1
Resources: Help me give my students kinesthetic reading intervention materials to help close their reading gap.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Intermediate School 254, Bronx, New York
Total: $157.49
Still Needed: $157.49 $58.08
Project description by Ms. Rampersad: I am currently teaching middle school reading intervention for students who are five or more grades below their grade level benchmark. These students are struggling with their basic reading skills like decoding, letter sound awareness, knowing their vowel sounds, and recognizing basic irregular words.
Giving these middle school students direct phonics instruction is essential to their reading success.
Research has shown that the most effective way to teach phonics is through a multimodal approach; one where students are able to access the content through a variety of different means, including those that involve hands on material.
We have been killing it and making progress with what we have, but these kinesthetic materials, such as sand, tiles and crayons will keep the students engaged with the process and also help them internalize what they are learning.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
In this short video from Education Week, teachers explain how a multi-modal approach can be used to help their students with reading.
We made excellent progress on project #2 last week!
Mrs. Meyers teaches fourth grade in a town northwest of Des Moines, and she needs more books to help turn her students into lifelong readers!
PROJECT #2
Resources: Help me give my students many different levels of books to choose from.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; more than half of students from low‑income households.
Location: Perry Elementary School, Perry, Iowa
Total: $475.21
Still Needed: $336.39 $211.98
Project description by Mrs. Myers: The only books many of my students have access to are from my classroom. These books will enhance my classroom library.
Students become better readers by reading.
They need lots of books available to them. I want to expose my students to many different genres and characters. I want my students to be able to see themselves in these books. My goal is for my students to read books because they enjoy reading not because I ask them to read. I like having many different series of books because if you can get someone hooked on one book, they will come back for more!
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Here’s a trailer for another book series with some volumes in the request list.
Our first project from last week was completed! Thank you to our readers!
Project #1, To Infinity and Beyond: Mr. Conley teaches elementary school in Florida, and he wanted to get his class some posters and charts AND a working model to help them understand the solar system.
He writes: I am about to start on planets and the solar system. These items are going to go so far towards giving the kids something that they can hold and look at. I have found that they learn more by actually holding and using than reading from a book. Your donation will aid not only this years students, but kids for years to come.
He additionally replied to our reader who donated: I can't thank you enough for this. My students are going to love these. I teach at a school that most of the students are under the poverty line and it is the generosity of people like you that will help me to show them what can be learned if given the opportunity.
We also have a note today from a project completed last week, where our posting time was too early for the teacher to have responded yet:
Project #2, Lost Children of Sudan: Mrs. Filippelli wanted her Iowa middle school students to learn about children’s experiences in the Second Sudanese Civil War.
She writes: Thank you so much for your support in helping me provide my students a more worldly view of history. It will be beneficial for them to read about more than one experience of the second Sudanese Civil War. It takes a village to raise kids, but it takes a world to teach them.
| DonorsChoose has developed the designation Equity Focus Schools to describe some schools that submit projects. They meet two criteria: at least 50% of students are Black, Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, or multiracial, and at least 50% of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch, the standard measure for school economic need. You can read more at the link about their efforts to address the longstanding inequity in education. |
Founded in 2009, The Inoculation Project seeks to fund science, math, and literacy projects in public school classrooms and libraries. Our conduit is DonorsChoose, a crowdfunding charity founded in 2000 and highly rated by both Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau.
Every Sunday, we focus on helping to fund projects in neighborhood public schools where the overwhelming majority of students come from low-income households. We welcome everyone who supports public school education — no money is required!
Finally, here’s our list of successfully funded projects — our series total is 1135! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.
