Week of December 15th - December 19th

Kindergarten
This week students will work on rhyming, and identifying beginning, medial and ending sounds. They will also continue to work on language awareness through repeating and segmenting sentences. They will continue to notice language patterns through poetry and nursery rhymes.

First Grade
Students will continue to "give me 5" rhyming words following specific word family patterns. They will blend individual sounds together to form words and they will continue to work on identifying middle vowel sounds. Many students need extra practice distinguishing short vowel sounds in words, specifically determining the difference between /e/ and /a/. They will participate in a read-aloud on Thursday and they will reflect on the story in their journals.

Second Grade
Students will be staying in their classrooms this week, learning about Holidays Around the World. I am happy to share in this experience with Ms. Oliver's class. I will also be accompanying Ms. Beseth's class on Thursday while the students share their holiday spirits through caroling.

December 8th - December 12th

Kindergarten
This week students will continue identifying letters and sounds. They will listen for rhyming words and will isolate beginning and ending sounds in words. Students will also segment sounds and will learn about words through nursery rhymes and poems.

First Grade
This week students will continue to practice identifying sight words. They will "give me 5"; offering rhyming words within specific word families. Students will blend individual sounds together to form words as well as chop words into individual sounds. They will also practice substituting, adding, and deleting sounds and syllables in words.

Second Grade
This week students will be "mind readers" while practicing sight words. They will be working with prefixes and suffixes as well as isolating and blending sounds together. Students will continue to improve their writing and comprehension by responding to read alouds in their journals.

Reminder For All Grades: Friday is Pajama Day! Our "Roadmap to Reading" incentive plan is off to a good start. We are reading our way to Manila, Philippines. In celebration of our reading achievements, we will be watching and reading Polar Express on Friday. Remind your children to wear pajamas and get ready to jump aboard!

November 24th & November 25th

I am looking forward to working in Mrs. Amish's classroom on Monday. I will be giving a lesson about respect and understanding differences. We will be creating a class quilt. I enjoyed working in Mrs. Hull's and Ms. Tracy's classrooms last week. The students completed turkey projects, listened to a story about accepting differences, and also made class quilts.

Tuesday is dress like a Farmer Day. We will celebrate accomplishing our reading goals!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Week of November 17th-21st

Kindergarten

This week my students will be engaged in numerous activities that promote letter and sound recognition.  They will continue to identify rhyming words as well as beginning and ending sounds.

First Grade

We are going to read and learn about getting along with others.  We are also going to read and write about thanksgiving.  We are going to reflect on the things we are thankful for.

Second Grade

This week we are going to work on writing persuasive letters.  We are going to learn how to write to a family member to convince them to agree to buying a new pet.  We are going to go through the writing process from planning, to drafting, to revising, to publishing.

Week of November 10th - 14th

Kindergarten
My students will identify letters by the sounds they make. They will identify rhyming words and they will become aware of changing words by adding or deleting beginning and ending sounds. They will also have an opportunity to listen to a book on Friday and "write" and draw their feelings about the story. Last Friday, they listened to I Went Walking by Sue Williams and wrote about what they saw when they went walking.

First Grade
My students will work on rhyming, onset fluency, blending, and identifying final and medial sounds. We will also work on our spelling words and sight words. On Friday, we will read a book and complete a journal assignment.

Second Grade
My students will learn about vowel teams and identify the sounds they make in words. They will continue to work with suffixes such as -ing, -ed, -es, -er, and -est. They will also continue to be "writers" while expressing their thoughts in their journals.

Some of my Second Grade students are "traveling" to the rainforest. We are integrating Science with Reading. We will be reading and researching about natural resources and discussing the importance of preserving our environment.

Week of November 3rd - November 7th

"The more you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn, that more places you'll go."

-Dr. Seuss

Kindergarten

We will continue to practice our letters and sounds while having fun with words. Students will identify rhyming words, isolate beginning and ending sounds, and blend syllables in words. They will also continue to "turn up their brains" so they can add and delete parts of words to form new words.

At Home Tip of the Week: Write notes to your child. Not only will they have to read the message, but they will enjoy a note of encouragement from a parent.

First Grade

We will continue identifying final and medial sounds in words. Students will also identify rimes in words and will add beginning sounds to form new words. For example, if the rime is -oke, they can add j to make joke, etc. Students will also write this week and proofread their work to be sure that they included capital letters, finger space between words, ending marks, and propper spelling of word wall words.

At Home Tip of the Week: Identify common signs while walking the dog, going to the park, Taking a trip to the grocery store, etc. This simple game increases vocabulary.

Second Grade

We will continue to work on identifying parts of words and learning how to decode words to increase fluency. Students will practice strategies to help with comprehension and they will continue to write in their journals.

At Home Tip of the Week: Send your child a piece of mail. Each day parents receive envelopes from the postman that require a great deal of time to look over. Send your child a card or a short letter to encourage them to read.

Week of October 27th - October 31st

Happy Halloween!!

Word study, fluency, comprehension strategies and writing instruction will continue this week. I will continue to help my students begin to read and become strategic users of literacy. My lessons this week will focus on allowing students to receive what they need while learning to read. It is important that children who are learning to read:

• Enjoy reading even when texts are challenging.
• Be successful even when texts are challenging.
• Have opportunities to problem-solve while reading.
• Read for meaning even when they must do some problem solving.
• Learn strategies they can apply to their reading of other texts.
• Use what they know to get what they don't know.
• Talk about and respond to what they read.
• Make connections between texts they have read and between their own knowledge and reading.

Please continue to read with your child every day and ask questions to promote understanding of the events that took place in the story.

Week of October 20th-October 24th

Kindergarten
Students will continue to be engaged in activities that promote phonemic awareness. Students will work with the alphabet to become efficient in identifying letter names and sounds. They will separate words by syllables and identify rhyming words within a word set (hat, bat, ball). They will also continue to identify beginning and ending sounds in words.

First Grade
Students will be engaged in activities that promote phonemic awareness as well as word sorts to help discriminate spelling patterns within words. They will also complete activities that will teach and review short vowels.

Second Grade
Students will begin journaling this week to work on expressing their thoughts through written words. They will also complete word sorts to learn vowel patterns within words as well as be engaged in activities that promote phonemic awareness.

Game Night, Anyone?

Looking for something fun to do with your child? Scrabble Jr. is a great way to bring awareness to vowel patterns as they have fun creating words and adjusting just when someone uses the letter on the board that they were planning on using! This can not only help with reading, but writing, as well. Here are a few tips:
1. When playing, remind the child to sort their letters into two piles - vowels and consonants (anything that's not a vowel).
2. Encourage them to make longer words so that there are more options to play words.
3. You probably don't want to keep score so that they focus more on the vowel patterns instead of the value of specific letters. An alternative might be to give one point for each letter played. The Jr. Scrabble version does not have any points on the tiles.
4. Refer back to the list of possible vowel combinations (see word file below).
5. Have fun!

Attachment:

Long_Vowel_Patterns.doc

Week of October 14th- October 17th

Kindergarten
Students will continue to focus on consonants; recognizing letters and being aware of the sounds letters make. They will be engaged in activities focused on identifying beginning and ending sounds, rhyming words, and compound words. They will also practice saying sentences with expression and will "walk it out" and/or "chop it out" to isolate each word within the sentence. I am looking forward to reading another book on "Friday Fun-day." Every Friday, the students have an opportunity to hear a fun book read aloud while practicing comprehension strategies, such as predicting, making connections, and asking questions.

First Grade
The first graders will be engaged in activities focused on isolating and blending syllables, identifying final and medial sounds, substituting parts of words to create new words, adding and deleting parts of words and reading sentences with expression. They will also continue to practice with sight words and short vowel sounds. We will read another book together on "Friday Fun-day" to practice comprehension strategies, such as predicting, inferring, visualizing, and making connections.

Second Grade
The second graders will continue to focus on manipulating speech sounds in words. They will segment words into syllables, substitute parts of words with new parts, add and delete phonemes, as well as separate sentences into individual words. They are learning how to decode new words as well as learning how to remember familiar words. They will also have opportunities to practice writing. This week we will focus on descriptive writing. I will continue to model fluent reading during a read-aloud on "Friday Fun-day." The students and I have been enjoying shared reading during this time. We read and discuss fun books while practicing comprehension strategies.

Week of October 6th-October 10th

Kindergartners will be busy this week with rhyming words, letter recognition and letter sounds. The first grade students will continue to segment words, add and delete phonemes, read with expression, practice propper letter formations, and identify and spell words with short i. The second grade students will be busy with guided reading and manipulating letters and sounds to form new words.

Off to a Good Start!!

Our first week of RtI went very well! The students seem to be excited about switching rooms and learning with different friends throughout the day. I am very happy to be working with many different students. We will continue to have fun with words! We are identifying rhyming words, isolating beginning and ending sounds of words, and blending and segmenting compound words. We are also practicing with different types of sentences, such as reading with "feeling" when we see an exclamation point. I will continue to use Michael Heggerty's Phonemic Awareness Program as well as Wilson Fundations Program to provide the skills needed to help each student succeed.

RtI Begins

RtI has begun!! Our first two days of the RtI program went very well! Students are busy moving to different classrooms for Reading. They are receiving instruction directed to their specific academic needs. I will be working in Mrs. Krep's kindergarten classroom, Ms. Tracy's 1st grade classroom, and Mrs. Olsen's 2nd grade classroom. I will be focusing primarily on the Michael Heggerty program. The Michael Heggerty program focuses on phonics and phonemic awareness.

Week of 9/15/08

Busy Bees

We are still buzzing around to prepare for the start of RtI on Monday, September 22nd. The RtI team has been working dilligently on the RtI schedules for kindergarten, first and second grades. Bzzzzzz,Bzzzzzzzz, I must get back to planning and preparing...only a few more days!

Response To Intervention

Center Cass School District #66 is in the process of implementing an Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) mandate, Response to Intervention (RtI). RtI is an array of procedures that can be used to determine if and how students respond to specific changes in instruction. RtI provides an improved process and structure for school teams in designing, implementing, and evaluating educational interventions.

Reading

This week we have been administering the aimsweb test to the children in kindergarten, first, and second grade. We are still preparing for the beginning of the RTI program which will start Monday, September 22nd at Elizabeth Ide.

RtI

Center Cass School District #66 is in the process of implementing an Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) mandate, Response to Intervention (RTI). RTI is an array of procedures that can be used to determine if and how students respond to specific changes in instruction. RTI provides an improved process and structure for school teams in designing, implementing, and evaluating educational interventions.