Stories From Our Community

Inspiring a Love of Literacy

“I have been building relationships with my teachers, school leaders, and the students in these classrooms, using a range of transformational coaching tools,” shared Carell, one of CLI’s Early Literacy Specialists. She is a former teacher and is now working with eight different centers and public schools coaching 3 and 4 year-old classroom teachers who use CLI’s Blueprint curriculum.

“We plan together, team teach, and I even model teach sometimes. My favorite parts are the times I get to do one-on-ones with my teachers because it is so great to hear your teacher having a breakthrough.”

One of the coaching tools CLI’s Early Literacy Specialists use to support their teachers in transforming their literacy instruction is the Read Aloud. The Read Aloud is crucial because it:
  • Builds language comprehension
  • Gives access and exposure to worthwhile texts
  • Enhances motivation, joy, and engagement
  • Helps children to learn Critical Literacy, which gives children agency
  • Disrupts the “pedagogy of poverty” by building on children’s cognitive capacity
At CLI we have made a commitment to present Read Alouds through the lens of equity, because we recognize that how we approach texts is not neutral. Children come to text discussions with knowledge, background, ideas, capabilities, and more. It's our job to honor, affirm, sustain, and grow the funds of knowledge children bring with them to our classrooms.

Read Alouds offer a daily opportunity to engage with language comprehension skills. It is dedicated time for children to build vocabulary, content knowledge, language and text structure, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge. Using the Read Aloud to sustain and affirm children’s linguistic, racial, and cultural assets builds their a love of reading that will serve as the foundation for a lifelong passion for literature.

This fostered love for reading is what leads to experiences like Carell’s “For me my joy will always come from the students. They are truly amazing humans and are so smart. I love to hear them interact with each other and the books they read.”
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