Week of December 14th - December 18th

1st Grade

This week students will learn about suffixes and base words. They will also learn about plurals. The new trick words are: were, her, and put.

2nd Grade

Students will be "traveling" around the world this week. They will have the opportunity to learn how holidays are celebrated in various countries. They will have their passports stamped and will participate in making some traditional holiday crafts.

Week of December 7th- December 11th

Kindergarten

The new letters for this week are -x & -q. The popcorn word is -friend. Students will continue to sing songs and learn actions to go along with letter sounds. Feel free to ask your child to sing some of the "Jolly Phonics" songs such as, "Snake is slowly slithering- /s//s//s//s//s/", etc. Students will also continue practicing tracking simple sentences by pointing to each word while reading sentences that contain some of the popcorn words learned thus far.

1st Grade
Students will be introduced to two new glued sounds this week: -am & -an. The new trick words are -from, -or, and -have. They will continue to practice tapping out words as an aid to spell words correctly. They will also work on identifying words by listening to individual sounds. Students will practice fluency and comprehension skills while reading a story called, Pam and Dan.

2nd Grade
Students will be participating in Reading & Writing Workshop this week. They will learn how to write a persuasive letter. They are going to be asked to persuade their parents to buy them a specific Christmas present and will need to provide support as to why they deserve the specific gift. Beware parents, their letters may be very convincing. :)

Week of November 30th - December 4th

"Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success." Henry Ford

I am looking forward to discussing your child's progress during conferences this week!

Kindergarten

This weeks letters are v & y. The new popcorn word is -to. Students will sing songs and use manipulatives to continue to learn letter names and sounds. They will use the Imagination Station computer program and will practice identifying individual sounds and syllables in words.

1st Grade

This weeks trick words are -they, -one and -said. Students will continue to identify and spell words with the glued sound -all. They will also spell and identify words that contain a bonus letter such as -f, -l, or -s. These letters are doubled if the word has a vowel immediately before it such as hill, puff, or miss. The vocabulary words for this week are chill, yell, and mess. Students will also read a story titled The Big Mess. They will also practice voice expression as well as identifying capital letters, ending marks, bonus letters, and glued sounds within the story.

2nd Grade

Students will write about a fantasy trip this week. They will work with partners to generate ideas for their stories. They will be encouraged to reread their writing to tell more and add details. They will be held accountable for proper capitalization and punctuation. They will also use peer conferencing as an aid to assure complete thoughts and coherent writing pieces. They will be asked to present their stories while practicing appropriate presentation styles.

November 23rd & November 24th

Due to the short week, students will not switch rooms for reading. I will be reviewing and analyzing data during the regularly scheduled "power hour." However, I will continue to read with my smaller group of 1st and 2nd graders. We will continue to practice sight words and various reading strategies to improve fluency and comprehension. Happy Thanksgiving!

Week of November 16th - November 20th

Kindergarten
The letters this week are z & w. The popcorn word is -a. Students will identify pairs of rhyming words from a series of three. They will listen and name the beginning and ending sounds in words. They will segment words by syllables and will blend them together. Students will also substitute and add phonemes to create new words: smallest- change small to tall, what is the word? (tallest)

1st Grade
Students will begin Unit 4 this week in Wilson Fundations. They will learn about the bonus letters f, l, & s. If a word has one vowel immediately followed by an f, l, or s at the end, that consonant is doubled. Such as puff, hill, and miss. The trick words for this week are you, we, and I. Students will continue to work on phonics skills as well as reading fluency and comprehension.

2nd Grade
Students will review their writing this week. They will choose one of their stories written thus far and will have an opportunity to revise and edit it using all the writing concepts they have learned up to this point. They will share their writing with their peers and will practice responding to their peers writing through prompts- I found out..... and I like your story because.... Students will use these prompts to help them stay focused within the writing process. Students will also think and talk about stories before they write. They will practice visualizing to get writing ideas, reread their writing and tell more, and they will check for sentence punctuation.

Week of November 6th - November 13th

Kindergarten
Students will continue to work on phonics and phonemic awareness. They will identify beginning and ending sounds. They will associate letter names to the correct sounds. They will recognize rhyming words, segment compound words, and will manipulate words by changing parts of the word.


1st Grade
The trick words this week are as, his, and has. Students will continue to read and write words with the following digraphs: wh, ch, sh, th, and ck. They will practice tapping out individual sounds to spell words. They will read a story about a fish through shared and choral reading. They will have the opportunity to identify learned concepts throughout the text. Such as highlighting trick words, underlining digraphs, circling capital letters, etc.


2nd Grade

Students were inspired last week from listening to Harry and the Terrible Whatzit by Dick Gackenback. They brainstormed a list of scary words and began to write scary sentences. This week they will listen to The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams. They will choose one of their sentences and will write their own scary story. They will be expected to include adjectives, capital letters, and proper punctuation. They are also expected to apply appropriate spelling skills. Students should refer to the word wall or their spelling dictionaries to spell high-frequency sight words. They should also approximate the spellings of unfamiliar words by sounding the words out.

Week of November 2nd - November 6th

Kindergarten
The letters for this week are l and f. The popcorn word is like. Students will sing songs and poems to reinforce letter names and sounds. They will also continue recognizing and manipulating rhyming and compound words, as well as beginning and ending sounds.

1st Grade
The trick words for this week are is, he, and for. We will practice them with sky writing, tracing, chanting, and finding them in print. Students will use magnetic letter boards to find letters and create words while tapping out individual sounds. Students will be "dipraph detectives" looking for wh, ch, sh, th, and ck and will write sentences using words that have digraphs in them. Students will also engage in shared reading to practice fluency.

2nd Grade

This week students will hear and discuss good writing from the following books:

They will write sentences to generate writing ideas. They will then create their own silly stories. They will be working on capitalizing proper nouns and applying spelling skills and rules throughout their writing. Students will also be peer-sharing and will have the chance to give their peers feedback.

Week of October 26th - October 29th

Kindergarten
Students are staying in their classroom this week and will be working on short vowels. My reading groups will meet again next week. The new Jolly Phonic letters for next week will be l & f. The new popcorn word will be- like.

1st Grade
Students completed the Unit 2 assessment in the Wilson Reading program. Unit 3 will last for three weeks and will focus on digraphs-letters that "stick together" such as wh, ch, sh, th, and ck. The following trick words will be taught throughout this unit: to, a, was, is, he, for, as, his, and has. We will continue to work on sentence dictation, segmenting, blending, and reading stories with fluency.

2nd Grade
Students did a nice job of writing stories about their friends. They are getting very good at adding adjectives to their writing and editing their writing. They are also becoming more comfortable with presenting their writing to their peers. This week, students will be staying in their classrooms for reading. Next weeks focus will be on writing silly stories, capitalizing proper nouns and approximating the spelling of unfamiliar words. At this point, students should be capitalizing the beginning of sentences as well as using proper end punctuation.

October 19 - October 23rd

Kindergarten
Due to a field trip this week and an early dismissal, I will only meet with the Kindergarten students three times this week. They will be using the computer program Imagination Station and will continue to work on identifying letters and recognizing their sounds. Students should know the following letters s, a, t, i, p, c,k, h, m, d and the following popcorn words, I, am, at, & see.

1st Grade
We are on our second week of Unit 2. We are still working on the following concepts:

• Blending and reading three-sound short vowel words
• Segmenting and spelling three-sound short vowel words
• Phonemic Awareness skills: sound manipulation (beginning, middle, and ending sounds)
• Sentence dictation procedures: capitalization, period, word spacing
• Sentence proofreading
• Trick words: the, of, and

An assessment will be administered on Friday. This test will check student's understanding of letter-sounds, spelling three letter words (cvc), spelling trick words, and sounding out words to write sentences.

2nd Grade

Students did a great job writing descriptive stories about their costumes. This week students will continue to make lists to generate writing ideas and will continue to explore descriptive language. They will write stories about a friend, using proper sentence punctuation and will approximate the spelling of unfamiliar words. They will also be responsible for correctly spelling the trick words that have been added to our word wall.

Week of October 13th - October 16th

Kindergarten

Students will learn about letters m and d this week. They will learn to spell and recognize the popcorn word- am. They will recognize rhyming words, compound words, and will isolate beginning and ending sounds. They will also review letter names and sounds learned thus far.

1st Grade
Students completed Unit 1 and did well on their first assessment. Unit 2 will last two weeks and will focus on the following concepts:

• Blending and reading three-sound short vowel words
• Segmenting and spelling three-sound short vowel words
• Phonemic Awareness skills: sound manipulation (beginning, middle, and ending sounds)
• Sentence dictation procedures: capitalization, period, word spacing
• Sentence proofreading
• Trick words: the, of, and

2nd Grade

Students did a great job last week adding sight and sound words to their writing. This concept will be expanded this week during Writing Workshop. Students will be expected to write a descriptive piece about a Halloween costume. They will be expected to write an interesting opening sentence, use adjectives, and write a closing sentence.

Week of October 5th - October 9th

Kindergarten
Students will continue to participate in activities that promote phonemic awareness. We will continue to recite rhyming words, isolate beginning and ending sounds, and combine two small words to create compound words. We will continue to review letters s,a,t,i,p,n,ck,e and the following sight words-at, and I. Our new letters for this week are h & r. The new popcorn word is see. Students will also be engaged with I-Station this week, a data driven computer intervention.

1st Grade
Students have been progressing well with letter-keyword-sound relationships of letters introduced thus far. This week's focus will be on letters p, j, v, w, z, qu, y, x. I will review short vowel sounds and reinforce letter formation. A unit test will be administered on Friday. The students will be asked to place letters in alphabetical order and will need to identify and write letters to match their sounds.

2nd Grade
This week students will continue to hear and discuss good writing. They will listen to another story from Donald Crews and one from Cynthia Rylant to use as models for their own writing. They will make lists to generate writing ideas and they will write about something that happened to them. They will learn how to use descriptive language to enhance their writing and they will be asked to focus on capitalizing first letters of sentences and using ending punctuation.

Week of September 28th-October 2nd

Kindergarten
We sang alphabet songs last week and used alphabet letter strips to learn letter names and sounds. This week I will continue to focus on alphabet recognition and sound awareness. I will begin using Michael Heggerty to focus on phonemic awareness. "Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken words are made up of individual sounds, which are called phonemes. A child who is phonemically aware is able to isolate sounds, blend, and segment the sounds into spoken and written words." Studies have shown that this awareness is one key to active reading.

1st Grade
Students did a great job participating in their first week of Wilson. Each unit lasts about 3 weeks, unit assessments are generally given on day five of the third week. The first unit focuses on letter-keyword-sound for consonants and short vowels, letter formation for lowercase letters a-z, alphabetical order, and sound recognition for consonants and short vowels. This week we will focus on the following letters: d, g, h, j, k, l, p, s,v, w, e, o & u.

2nd Grade
Students did a wonderful job participating in their first week of Being a Writer. They learned how drawing can be used to inspire writing and they worked together to write a shared story. Students also wrote about a place they like to go to. They had an opportunity to sit in the "Author Chair" and share their stories with their peers. Their finished work has been compiled into a book and placed in my library. This week students will learn about the author Donald Crews, they will learn "turn to you partner" to share ideas, they will draw sketches to generate ideas and they will write about their drawings.

Week of September 21- September 25th

I want to thank parents and students for understanding my absence last week. Unfortunately, I was grieving the loss of my very special Gram. I am going to allow her spirit to give me strength to come back to teach my students how to become better readers.

Kindergarten RtI will begin on Wednesday of this week. I will be engaging Kdg. students with Michael Heggarty, a skill based intervention focusing on phonemic awareness.

I will become acquainted with my 1st and 2nd grade students as well. First grade students will be engaged in Wilson Fundations, a comprehensive skill based intervention focusing on letter knowledge, letter formation, decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Second grade students will be engaged in Being a Writer, a research based intervention which incorporates stories as a model for good writing.

Week of September 8th - September 11th

We have finished administering Aims Web and Imagination Station assessments to all students. We have also finished administering ISEL's to kindergarten and second grade students as well as DRA's to first grade students. This week we will be utilizing all the data to help place students in appropriate leveled reading groups. We will also be working diligently this week on deciding which reading interventions will be used for each reading group.

August 31st - September 4th

Welcome back parents and students! This past week was filled with excitement of starting a new school year. I have great expectations for a successful year! This week the RtI team will be administering the AIMS Web benchmark tests and creating reading plans and schedules. First and Second grade students will begin switching for reading on September 14th. Kindergarten students will begin on September 23rd.

June 1st - June 5th

I can't believe the school year is coming to an end. Time sure does fly when you are having fun! I really enjoyed teaching your children this year. It has been extremely rewarding to witness their growth in Reading. Please continue to promote the joy of reading over the summer. Summer is definitely a time to have fun and explore outside but reading can not be forgotten. Print is all around us..have your child look for words around them. Encourage silent reading, partner reading, and enjoy a book together through a read-aloud. I wish good luck to the students going on to Prarieview and am looking forward to seeing the returning students at the end of August! Have a great summer filled with books!!! :)

Week of May 18th - May 22nd

Monkey Monday....I am excited to be joining the Kindergartners on their field trip to the ZOO. We will read and write about animals this week.

I am proud of how hard all my students worked this year. This week we will review strategies learned and will brainstrom ideas on how to keep reading and learning over the summer!

Week of May 11th - May 15th

Kindergarten
Students will continue to work on improving their phonemic awareness. They will rhyme, blend, segment, add/delete sounds in words, and they will identify final sounds. They will also participate in echo and choral reading of our poem of the week.

1st Grade
Students will use nonsense words to create rhymes. They will identify medial and final sounds. They will work with glued sounds, such as -ang, -ing, ong, ung, ank, ink, onk, and unk. They will practice with sight words and will practice strategies during shared reading.

2nd Grade
Students will continue to work with blends, ending sounds, and word families. The focus this week will be on long -i, spelled igh and ie. They will work on fluency through repeated readings and they will focus on summarizing and paying attention to detail while reading stories.

Week of May 4th - May 8th

This week, myself and the RtI team will be administering the Aims Web Benchmarking Tests. These tests are mandated through the state and are administered three times a year. Kindergartners will be asked to complete three timed tests: Letter Naming, Letter Sounds, and Phonemic Segmentation. 1st Graders will be asked to complete two timed tests: Nonsense Word Fluency and Oral Reading. 2nd Graders will be asked to complete one timed test: Oral Reading Fluency.

Week of April 27th - May 1st

Wow-less than 30 days left of school left! Time flies when you're having fun!

This week, I am going to continue working on the three foundational skills of reading:
1.)Phonemic awareness, or learning the individual sounds that constitute a language, for example, "buh" as the sound of "b".
2.)Phonics, or the letter-sound relationships available in the language.
3.)Exposure to the meaning of the written word by reading aloud to children as well as having children read independently.

All three of these parts are very important building blocks when teaching a child to read, as each piece is necessary to support the next. With phonemic awareness as the first building block, a child can begin to piece together words in books. Add a helpful person by their side and they will begin to ask questions, which lets you know that they are at the "phonics phase”. Now is the time to point out important clues, such as how letter sounds blend, how an "e" at the end of a word changes a vowel sound from short to long, or how some consonants have more than one sound. You can also show them upper and lower case letters. It is also important at this time to show your child the frequently used words, best learned by sight. Remember to keep reading to your child, to include exposure to meaning.

This week, I am including some helpful reading tips to incorporate at home:

1. Read aloud to your child from books, but also mail, instruction booklets, grocery lists, etc. (and don't stop even when your child can read independently!)
2. Take turns "drawing" a letter on each other's back with your fingers; guess what it is, tell them what sound it makes
3. Encourage hands-on play with magnetic letters and sponge letters in bath; sound out the nonsense words your child creates with them.
4. Show them how fun it is to trace letters with crayons or colored pencils.
5. Cut out letters from different types of paper; make some “ABC” craft projects.
6. Play word games like Hangman, Junior Scrabble, Boggle, ABC Bingo, word searches, or make up you own game asking them: "What begins with ‘buh?” or “What ends with ‘guh?"
7. Write a single letter on some Post-It notes and make it into a game having your child stick them on everything beginning with that letter.
8. Pick a "sight word of the day," then have your child call it out every time you find it in a story.
9. Leave fun engaging looking books around the house and car for your child to find and pick up.
10. Provide a quiet period when you both get you favorite book and go off to read alone.
11. Get cozy! Or make it an adventure for them. Read to them at night under a blanket with a flashlight, or read them an adventure story outside in a play tent.

Week of April 20th-April 24th

Kindergarten

This week students will continue working with digraphs -sh, -ch, -th, and -wh. They will isolate beginning sounds and will segment individual sounds to form words. Students will listen to a read-aloud and will respond through writing, focusing on making connections.

1st Grade

"Dr. Seuss is on the Loose." This week students will be making their own books following Dr. Seuss's whimsical style of writing. They will develop rhyming sentences and will draw pictures to support their text.

2nd Grade

This week students will be engaged in Reading and Writing activities about butterflies, Earth Day, and the Rain Forest.

Week of April 13th - April 17th

Kindergarten
Students will be introduced to digraphs -sh, -ch, and -th. They will identify rhyming words and they will isolate the beginning and ending digraphs in words. Students will blend individual sounds into words and will chop sounds from whole words. They will add sounds to rimes to make new words and they will substitute parts of words to create new words.

1st Grade
Students will complete cloze sentences using rhyming words. They will isolate beginning blends in words such as -pr, -st, -gl, -dr, -tr, -bl. Students will blend individual sounds into words and they will "punch out" the final sounds in words. They will also add sounds to parts of words to create new words.

2nd Grade
Students will be working on Expository writing this week. They will be writing three paragraph essays about a Rainforest animal of their choice. They have worked hard to research facts about their animals, now they are going to put the information together into a fluent writing piece. They will also be creating visual representations to support their writing.

Week of April 6th - April 10th

I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing Spring Break!!!

This week students will practice reading "just right" books. They will continue to learn how to successfully choose and read appropriately leveled books. Before reading, students will complete a picture walk. We will use the pictures to predict what will take place throughout the story. During reading, students will practice decoding skills to help them become more fluent readers. After reading, students will discuss the book while working on comprehension strategies.

Week of March 23rd - March 27th

I will continue to engage my students in phonics and sight word instruction.

Phonics instruction teaches children the relationships between the letters of written language and the individual sounds of spoken language. It teaches children to use these relationships to read and write words. The goal of phonics instruction is to help children learn and use the alphabetic principle--the understanding that there are systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken sounds. Knowing these relationships will help children recognize familiar words accurately and automatically, and "decode" new words. In short, knowledge of the alphabetic principle contributes greatly to children's ability to read words both in isolation and in connected text.

Here is an example of some activities that will be implemented this week to help promote a strong knowledge of the alphabetic principle:

Students will segment (isolate sounds within a word), judge if two words start the same or end the same, remove a phoneme (smallest sound) from a word, count phonemes in a word, blend sounds together, sound/symbol identification, including knowing the letters by sight and by sound, and matching letters with the appropriate sounds and vice versa, and awareness of sound patterns in the language.

Learning sight words is also an important step in literacy. Readers need to recognize each word as quickly and effortlessly as possible so that they can pay attention to the more mentally demanding task of understanding what they are reading. Students will encounter sight words more frequently than any other words in print and, for this reason, they need to recognize them on sight, and need to read them without hesitation.

Some activities that will be implemented this week to practice sight words include word activities, magnetic letter activities, and writing activities such as "Mind Reader" and "Rainbow Writing."

Mind Reader: Students number their papers 1-5. They listen to clues and write a sight word on each line- hoping to read my mind to find the correct word from our word wall. "It has four letters, rhymes with __, starts with __, ends with __, etc.

Rainbow Writing: Student write a sight word, whispering the correct spelling of the word. Then they trace the word three times with different colored crayons. This creates a fun way to memorize trick words.

Week of March 16th - March 20th

Kindergarten
Students will work with the following rimes: -ut, -ust, -ump, -unk, & ush. They will continue working with the short u vowel sound. They will blend individual sounds into words and they will segment words into individual sounds. Students will also substitute beginning sounds to form new words. Also, we will engage in a read aloud on "Friday Fun-day."

1st Grade
Students will listen to word endings to identify rhyming words. They will listen to words and will identify the final and/or middle sounds. They will review sight words and compound words. Students will also be introduced to the concept of baseword and suffix. Specifically this week, we will work on adding the suffix -s to basewords. The concept of plurals will also be introduced. We will engage in a read aloud on "Friday Fun-day."

2nd Grade
Students will identify final and medial sounds in words. They will add and delete sounds to form new words. They will work on identifying and spelling two syllable words ending in -le and -er. Students will learn about verbs and will practice adding proper verbs to their sentences during journal writing. They will also be engaged in a read aloud on "Friday Fun-day."

Week of March 9th - March 12th

Bridging home and school is very important to me. I am looking forward to conferences this week!

Reminder

After School Reading Club will not meet this week. Classes will resume on Tuesday, March 10, 2009

I will continue to engage students in meaningful reading activities this week. Focus will continue to be on phonemic awareness, word recognition, and reading fluency. Students will be expected to focus on word families and vowel patterns. They will learn decoding strategies and will practice reading leveled books. While reading, students will track words with their fingers and practice various strategies: using context and picture clues to read an unknown word, look at word families or vowel patterns within words, and skip an unknown word to the end of the sentence then go back to the beginning to read it again.

Week of March 3rd- March 6th

I am glad to be back in good health this week. Unfortunately, I was unable to complete my plans detailed in last week's blog due to being out sick. I will be engaging the students in read-alouds and "cooking up" "story pies." Please see last week's blog for a detailed explanation.

I will also be engaging the second graders in narrative writing. They were asked to bring in three items that are important in understanding who they are. We will explore these items and write personal narratives in a five paragraph essay.

Week of February 23rd - February 27th

In addition to working on phonics this week, we will be engaging in read-alouds to focus on fluency and comprehension. Why are read-alouds important, you ask?? Well, let me share the reasons. Read alouds expose students to a positive reading role model, new information, the pleasures of reading, rich vocabulary, good grammar, a broader variety of books than they'd choose on their own, and richly textured lives outside their own experiences. At the same time students imaginations are stimulated, attention spans stretched, listening comprehension improved, emotional development nurtured, and the reading-writing connection established. Outside of all that, reading aloud doesn't do much. ;)

After reading, we will be "cooking up" a "story pie." Each student will get a slice of paper and a task to write and illustrate their "piece" of the story (the setting, the characters, the problem, etc.). As students retell their parts, the pie will be reassembled, taped together, and displayed.

Week of February 17th - February 20th

Kindergarten
Students will continue to work with their "popcorn" words. They we continue to produce rhyming words within the following word families: -ill, -ick, -im, -ist, & -ish. This week's focus for beginning sounds is short vowel /i/. Students will blend individual sounds to form whole words and they will chop words into individual sounds.


First Grade

Students will continue to work with sight words and spelling words. They will continue to work with -l and -r blends, such as sl/cl/bl/gl & cr/dr/br/pr. Students will identify final and medial sounds. They will substitute, add, and delete sounds in words. They will transfer their knowledge of sounds in words by segmenting individual sounds and writing the corresponding letters to create words and sentences on paper or white boards.


Second Grade
Students are staying in their homeroom classes this week for Reading. They will be writing biographies on significant historians. I will be working with a small group of 2nd graders. We will be creating timelines demonstrating significant events in a specific historian's life.

Week of February 9th - February 13th

Iowa tests are going to be administered this week so I will not be working with my reading groups. I will be analyzing our current interventions to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each. I will also be researching alternative interventions that may be utilized for next year.

The students at Elizabeth Ide are continuing to read "around the world." This month, we are "traveling" to New Dehli, India. Since tigers are natural inhabitants in India, students are encouraged to dress like a tiger or wear stripes to school on February 27, 2009.

Week of February 2nd - February 6th

Kindergarten
Students will continue to work with word families to create rhyming words and they will listen for short /i/ at the beginning of words. Students will blend words saying individual sounds while sliding chips into Elkonin boxes. They will segment words by chopping it into individual sounds. Students will also add and delete sounds at the beginning of words to create new words.

First Grade
Students will create rhyming words specific to categories and word families. They will blend individual sounds and will chop the sounds into individual phonemes. Students will identify final sounds within a series of words, they will substitute, add, and delete sounds in words. Students will also work with -r blends this week: dr, fr, gr, pr, tr, br, & cr.

Second Grade
Students will continue to work with singular possessive nouns, base words, and noun endings. They will continue to write in their journals, trying to include words that have the nd, ng, or nk endings. Students will also listen to a read-aloud this week while focusing on comprehension, specifically cause/effect and questioning.

wWeek of January 26th - January 30th

Kindergarten
This week students will work on identifying and reading sight words. They will list rhyming words; creating words that are in the following families: -ad, -ab, -am, -and, & -ast. They will be exposed to short -a words. Students will also listen and say individual sounds while sliding chips into Elkonin boxes. They will also have fun repeating words using a roller coaster action with their hands. This will help with becoming aware of vowel sounds in the middle of words.

First Grade
Students will identify sight words. They will segment and blend sounds as well as add and delete sounds in words. They will read words containing short and long vowels. They will also write and read long -o words.

Second Grade
Students will write in their journals and will edit their work focusing on proper writing conventions. They will create words containing digraphs: sh, th, wh, ch, & ck. Students will continue to work with prefixes and suffixes and learn how to break words apart by syllables to become fluent readers.

Week of January 20th - January 23rd

The data from mid-year benchmarking has been analyzed and has been used to determine the best reading placements for individual students. This week, I will incorporate some community building activities to help some of the new reading groups feel comfortable working together. We will continue to manipulate words by segmenting, adding, and deleting sounds. We will enjoy shared reading and guided reading, while focusing on fluency and comprehension. As there never seems to be enough time in a day to practice essential skills, I have listed some strategies that can be incorporated at home to help your child become a successful reader.

Reading Tips for K-2 Parents
· Talk with your child. This helps develop language patterns and helps your child become comfortable with words.
· Encourage your child to tell you about something that happened. Talking helps your child connect words to experiences.
· Use magnetic letters and alphabet books to help teach the ABCs and how to spell your child’s name.
· Read to your child for 10-20 minutes a day. Stop when your child loses interest.
· When you read, read slowly and follow the words with your finger, left to right.
· Read with expression to help make the story come alive.
· Let your child say words or phrases from the story that repeat.
· Pretend to read by looking at the pictures and saying parts of the story from memory.
· Have your child try to guess what will happen next.
· Ask why a character may have done something in the story.
· Limit T.V. time and set aside time just for reading.
· Read on your own. By watching you read, your child will see that reading is a great way to gather information and that it's fun!

Week of January 12th - January 16th

This week I will continue to work on the benchmark data and create new goals for students in the RTI program. I am also very excited to continue working with the first and second grade students this week in a small group setting. I will implement a phonemic awareness program, as well as reinforce concepts beinng learned within student's classrooms.

First Grade
Students will learn how to spell and read words with long a; they will become "detectives" to find words with vce (vowel consonant vowel) patterns and realize that that the "magic e" creates the vowel to say its name. Students will also practice identifying and reading words with digraphs- ch, wh, th, and sh. They will segment words into individual sounds and will add rimes to beginning sounds to form new words.

Second Grade
Students will review digraphs th, wh, sh, and ch. They will learn how to spell and read words with vowel pairs ai, ay, ow, ou, ee, and ea. Students will blend individual sounds together to form words. They will have fun with words by realizing that numerous words can be made by changing either the beginning, middle or ending sounds. They will also have opportunities to practice their writing skills through journal writing.

Week of January 5th - January 9th

This week, I will be administering the Aims Web winter benchmark test to all students in grades K-2. This test will be one component used to assess academic progress. This test is part of the state mandated RTI program. The benchmark test is conducted three times a year-September, January, and May.