Welcome to Miss Nandlal’s Pet Adoption Agency!
Second graders in Jacqueline Nandlal’s class at William O. Schaefer Elementary School carefully selected and adopted stuffed animals to be their reading buddies at home on Friday. Nandlal began this tradition with her students in 2020 as a way to help students work on their reading skills at home. “This allows them to not only practice their reading, but it’s also a way to instill a love of reading that I hope will stay with them for many years. Based on my previous classes, I have found that their reading has drastically improved. I have had parents and students from my previous classes say that they still read aloud with their reading buddy at home,” said Nandlal. “It always gets the students excited to read and I am so grateful to the SOCES PTA for awarding me a teacher grant because it has allowed me to purchase the stuffed animals for my students this year as well as for the next couple of years!”
Before students chose their stuffed animal, Nandlal explained how students have to take care of their reading buddy at home and emphasized that they should be reading with them at least 20 minutes each night, including on the weekends. She also explained that by practicing their reading skills, they will become better writers because they get to see how an author writes their books. Once students selected their animal, they completed an official adoption application and certificate, complete with the pets’ name and birthday. Students then got to spend some time practicing reading aloud to their buddies with their classmates before taking them home!