Lit Kits for KidsTM
What are Lit Kits for KidsTM
Lit Kits for KidsTM are materials designed to give reading tutors of primary school children everything they need to turn at-risk readers into accomplished readers. The kits, which were piloted in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and agency tutoring programs, combine the best of fine literature with basic skills activities. Children will read classic stories, folk tales and fables such as, The Story of Ferdinand, Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain and The Lion and the Mouse, with the opportunity to improve skills such as, phonics, reading comprehension and vocabulary using activities created in the context of the book in each kit.
Lit Kits for KidsTM consists of 27 individually packaged kits grouped into five skill levels: pre-emergent, emergent, developing, functional and purposeful or independent. Each kit focuses on core competencies of reading comprehension, vocabulary development, fluency, phonemic awareness and phonics, and cultural enrichment. These competencies correspond to the Ohio Department of Education guidelines for reading benchmarks.
I Read Signs Lit Kit.
Lit Kits for KidsTM Make A Difference
Tutoring at-risk children is a very complex, difficult process, and tutors are not reading specialists. In most cases, they are not even teachers. The kits were designed specifically for tutors who felt ill prepared in their role. In fact, they were our focus group. We kept refining the kits until tutors told us they worked, and they could actually measure significant improvement in the reading skills of their students.
But something else happened that was harder to measure: the children began to see reading as a pleasure, not a task. That's exactly where all readers need to be by grade four, when the focus shifts from "learning to read" to "reading to learn."
Lit Kits for KidsTM Endorsement
"After the first two weeks of tutoring, word had gotten around and I had students come up to me asking if they could come to the "fun" reading class. I also received many calls from parents asking why their child was not chosen for the program. It was as if they were upset, and the children seemed upset that they were not allowed to participate. This threw me for a loop, because usually we have the students balk at tutoring sessions!" - Coordinator, St. Jerome School
To find out more about how the Lit Kits could be useful to your organization, and for ordering information, please call Cleveland Reads at (216) 436-2222.
