The Breckenridge Independent School District Library Services is a recent recipient of a grant that will help support English Language Learners (ELL). BISD announced Thursday, Aug. 14 that they received a $5,000 grant from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation (DGLF). The grant project is entitled \u201cCultivating Reading Confidence for English Language Learners.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The funds will help the school district\u2019s libraries purchase books for their English language learners across all four campuses to help support the learners\u2019 overall reading confidence. District Librarian Abby Moore said that she had applied to one of the Youth Literacy grants from the DGLF last April. The nationwide literacy foundation offers grants each year for various literacy initiatives and programs, with grants being awarded across the country for a maximum of $5,000 each.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Youth Literacy Grant that Moore had applied for is open to schools, public libraries and non-profit organizations that help K-12 students that are below level or having trouble reading.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The grant funding is provided to assist in the following areas:\u00a0
Implementing new or expanding existing literacy programs\u00a0
Purchasing new technology or equipment to support literacy initiatives\u00a0
Purchasing books, materials or software for literacy programs\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first time I have ever written a grant, and I honestly wasn\u2019t sure I would get it. Many of my fellow librarian colleagues have missed out on the DGLF grant before, so I went in with low expectations,\u201d Moore said. \u201cI was so thrilled to find out that I received it!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Moore described that for the past 17 years that she has been a librarian, one of the biggest challenges has been providing enough books for students who enter BISD schools with little to no English skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese students, known as English Language Learners, often feel overwhelmed as they adjust to a new school environment,\u201d Moore said. \u201cMany are fluent readers in their home language, and having access to books they can understand provides comfort, confidence, and a way to stay connected with their love of reading.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Moore said that up until now, she had stretched her book fair earnings to purchase some Spanish-language materials for the campus libraries, since most of their ELL students speak Spanish \u2013 with some Vietnamese and other language speakers.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cUnfortunately, my regular book budget is only about $3,000 per campus per year, so it has been difficult to purchase enough high-quality books in other languages on top of the necessary purchases we make each year,\u201d Moore said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I applied for this grant. My project, titled \u2018Cultivating Reading Confidence for English Language Learners,\u2019 will allow us to build a stronger collection of books in students\u2019 home language, as well as bilingual and lower-level English materials to support language growth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Moore stated that each of the four campus libraries at BISD will receive about $1,250 worth of new materials\u2014roughly 60-70 books each\u2014dedicated specifically for their ESL students.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile this won\u2019t create a huge collection overnight, it\u2019s an important step forward,\u201d Moore said. \u201cUltimately, my goal as a librarian is to help all of our students become lifelong readers. For our English language learners, that means giving them stories they can enjoy right now, in the language they understand best, while also supporting their journey toward learning English. Thanks to the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, we\u2019ll finally be able to provide that in a meaningful way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Besides BISD, 62 other programs in Texas received the grant, among 711 programs nationally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Breckenridge Independent School District Library Services is a recent recipient of a grant that will help support…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":160416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,7372,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-160415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fort-worth","10":"tag-fortworth","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115059696805343158","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}