“In this box are all the words I know…Most of them you will never need, some you will use constantly, but with them you may ask all the questions which have never been answered and answer all the questions which have never been asked. All the great books of the past and all the ones yet to come are made with these words. With them there is no obstacle you cannot overcome. All you must learn to do is to use them well and in the right places.” -Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
This quote from The Phantom Tollbooth, which students read in fifth grade, is a great description of the process that takes form in first grade. First graders continue to construct the boxes they began in Kindergarten, and are continuously filling them with new words and sounds. In first grade, the utter significance of the words they are learning begins to take hold, as students dive deeper into reading comprehension and multi-letter phonograms. From the adventure of The Magic Treehouse to excellent detective work in Nate the Great, students are encouraged to develop their sense of wonder-- a sense of wonder that will exist throughout their literary lives. Not only do teachers work diligently with students to recognize, pronounce, and enunciate words, parent volunteers are also encouraged to work with students during weekly Reading Groups to become more comfortable reading aloud and utilize inflection in their reading. Students love the challenge of reading longer and more difficult books as their skills improve, and their unquenchable thirst for knowledge is supported as first graders begin to evolve from learning to read, to reading to learn.
