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.