Creating a good library is essential for the reading teacher. You need to have good English as well as Spanish reading books in the bilingual classrooms. Students need to fall in love with reading and the best way to start that process is interacting with books that they can relate to and can learn to love. I choose books that relate to my students. Patricia Polacco is a great author when it comes to my bilingual students because they can relate to her stories, which were told to her by her family. This is an area where my bilingual students have prior knowledge. One book in particular that touches them as well as me is “Thank you, Mr. Faulkner.” Patricia Polacco tells the story of her childhood as a dyslexic child. Not to say that bilingual students are dyslexic, but learning reading skills in any language is difficult, especially when you don’t have a solid foundation. Explore reading with students and asking questions on what they read.
For example: What was the problem that Patricia Polacco had? She couldn’t read well and she thought she was dumb.
Did any of her teachers other than Mr. Faulkner, help her solve her reading situation? What do you think they could have done to help Patricia?
On questions like this, you can also start to analyze the character traits at the beginning, the middle or the end of the story