Julia Kalustian

Dr. McCracken

Foundations of Literacy

12/02/19

Story Boost Reflection

Story boost is all about empowering classrooms to take the time out of their

school day to focus on reading. More specifically, taking the time to read to young

readers individually. Students are exposed to rich literature through the use of children’s

books. As a result of story boost, the reader starts recognizing words through text and

find meaning within a story. Reading to your students is critical in language

development for emergent readers. Throughout this course, it was a privilege to spend

an hour a week reading to three different students at Frances Slocum Elementary

School here in Marion, Indiana.

My first student was Ny’ere. She has an eye sight impairment, so recognizing

pictures and words is something that does not come easy for her. Nonetheless, Ny’ere

was always enthusiastic to read. Oftentimes, she wanted to hold the book and turn the

pages herself. On her own, I would oftentimes find Ny’ere making predictions on the

meaning of the book based on the cover and illustrations. She loved to share her

opinion on the book and characters as I read to her. She would sound out some CVC

words, and would try to mimic what I was reading by sounding out the text. I found her

making connections with the illustrations of the text. Overall, she seemed more inspired

to read each time I went to Frances Slocum.

 Logan is such a bright kindergartener. He had immense enthusiasm to read each

week. He practically ran out of his class to the hallway each time I knocked on the door.

Logan was great at processing what was happening in the story, breaking down the plot

as I read each book. He was strong vocally each week and made connections to books

we read in the weeks past. Logan would encourage Michael to share his opinions, and

even ask Michael questions about the books sometimes. Logan compared himself to

characters in the book and other books we have read in the past weeks. By the end,

Logan was able to answer any questions I had about the book we read, while creating

his own names for the characters in the book.

Michael was a joy to work with. He was slow to warm up in the beginning as he is

rather shy, but at the end he was more talkative. Any time he did not understand the

words or the pictures, he asked questions about the book. He enjoyed making sounds

of the animals any time he saw one in a book. Michael would get excited each time his

prediction was correct. He is great with making connections to real life when listening to

the books. He even compared books we read each week to the books we read in

previous weeks. Michael always had a positive attitude and a smile on his face while

reading. He was such a delight to read to each week.

Not only did my students enjoy me reading, but it was such a joy in my own life to

have the opportunity to read to them. As I was modeling reading to them, I was learning

something myself. I was learning how to have conversations with the students on their

responses to literature. Seeing their faces light up when they understood the meaning

behind the text brought such happiness to me. Watching them turn the page to see

what happens next was so inspiring. Each time I visited Frances Slocum, I was planting
seeds in their language development. Reading is so vital in a child’s education, as story

boost exemplifies. This opportunity to read is so precious to me because I got to see

them grow not only in their reading skills, but in their curiosity towards books. I am so

grateful that I got to spend this precious time reading to each of these students this

semester.