Winter Reading

It’s almost Thanksgiving, Christmas is right around the corner, and our 2nd Family Night has been scheduled! We hope you will join us December 15, 6:00-7:00, for dinner and a popular reading activity.  This is a come and go activity.

“Cookies to Go” has become a tradition for our Title 1 families. Students use their skills at reading and following written instructions in order to create a bagged cookie mix to use or to give as a gift. This hands-on activity puts reading to practical use and demonstrates the value of careful reading.  See attached flyer for more information.  cookieFamnightflyer

Cold winter evenings are perfect for curling up with a good book. Students reading together with a parent is an awesome way to combine reading practice with quality family time. All of our students should spend time practicing reading out loud, and reading with parents is a great way to do this. If your child is reading something that is difficult for them, try echo reading. This is when you read out loud while your child follows along with their eyes, then your child reads the same thing you did. This type of reading provides support to readers in several ways. There is a model of good reading, students hear challenging words before they have to read them, and by hearing the selection prior to reading it the students have a better understanding, or a chance to question what they may not understand.

Title 1 classes participate in the Pizza Hut Book It program; encourage your kids to read and record the time reading in order to receive a free pizza coupon.

“No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading“ ^{- Confucius}

Fall Into Xtreame Reading

When the leaves turn colors and days become shorter and cooler, you know it’s time for the famous Willard Intermediate Title 1 Scavenger Hunt!

This is the first of three Family Nights that the Title 1 reading teachers host. These events are intended to provide our students and their families with an evening of fun reading activities. Please join us for this first Family Night, a fluency scavenger hunt. This activity will have families searching the halls of WIS and reading aloud together.

The focus of this activity is oral reading and fluency. There are several aspects to this: word recognition and decoding, rate, expression, attending to punctuation, and reading with meaning. Students are encouraged to practice oral reading at home several times a week. Even a seemingly short amount of time, five to ten minutes, of oral reading daily can contribute to significant improvements. Family support and encouragement in this can really help boost reading skills.

We are looking forward to seeing you on Oct. 20. !

 For more information regarding family night, please see attached brochure.  Oct.11famnightflyer

 

Secret Phrase….Turtles, more turtles, he bellowed and brayed.

dra, MAP, students, and after school reading club

Several of our students from last year have stopped by to ask when classes start and whose class they will be in. Our answers are “soon” and “we don’t know yet”. There is more to it than just picking kids; building wide dra testing needs to be completed and MAP scores considered. As soon as this is done, we will start to schedule students and send letters.

In the meantime, we are planning on starting our after-school reading club, “X-treme Reading” , on Tuesday, Sept. 6. This club is for invited members (and sometimes guests) only. Meetings will be every Tuesday until 4:30. Look for a bright green brochure to come home with more information, or you can download it here  Xtreme Readers Brochure .  The club activities are planned with the intention of providing reading practice in a fun, supportive environment and to encourage students to become life long readers. If you have any suggestions for activities, or would like to participate with the club, comtact either Mrs. Gehring or Mrs. Starkey.

Hello again!!

Yeah! We are back in school. We will all miss the no schedules and freedom of the summer, but it is good to be back.

We are absolutely Bringing Our Best Game this year. As the Extreme Team, we are determined  to help our students to  make some extreme gains in reading this year.

Our classes will not start immediately, but soon. We have some testing and “housekeeping” matters to take care of, then Bring On The Kids!!! That’s when the real fun begins! Can’t wait! Watch this space for further posts.

Secret phrase: X-Team Reads and Rocks

 

The Last Chapter

As the school year winds down, so do our Title 1 classes. We have finished almost all DRA testing and have seen some of our students achieve awesome gains. The majority of our 6th grade students are now reading on  grade level and the 5th graders have shown a lot of progress.

Our “i-read” program has taken off! So far, we have had at least 6 students check out an i-pod paired with a book, and many more have taken the i-pod class. As we tell our students, reading a book while listening to it is one of the easiest ways to improve your fluency.

We will soon be conferring with students about their strengths and needs as readers. Along with this, we will be helping them to prepare take home packets for summer reading practice. We don’t want those skills we have worked so hard on to evaporate over the smmer!

secret phrase: All things improve with practice: soccer, bowling, gynmanistics and reading.

iRead with iPod Audiobooks!

We are very excited about a new technology addition to our reading program: iPods!!

With support from Mr. Davis, we have been building a library of audio books which have been used in our classes and in 5^th and 6^th grade reading classes. We now have iPods loaded with the books to check out to our students! We are calling it our “iRead” program.

The iPods will be paired with an actual copy of the book. Listening to the iPod while following along in the book will help students with both fluency and comprehension.

4 Simple Rules for iPod check out

*Students must attend a “Care and Responsibility” class prior to checking out an iPod

*Students will be able to check out the iPods for a week at a time, but can renew them if they aren’t done with the book in that time.

*Parents signature is required for checkout.

*No downloading or deleting of anything on the iPod and no changing of settings.

This is a list of the books/audio that we have available for check-out. We sincerely hope that combining technology with good literature will have a positive impact on our students’ reading. Please call if you have questions or suggestions.

At this time, we are planning on beginning classes and checkout after MAP testing.  Attached, you will find the iPod contract. 

secret phrase: reading- seeing and hearing

 iPod contract

Lawn Boy

Lawn Boy Returns

The Lightning Thief

The Sea of Monsters

Wild Man Island

The Curse of the Campfire Weenies

The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies

Unbearable

Frindle

Walk Two Moons

Dear Mr. Henshaw

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Maniac Magee

Eggs

Wringer

The Leanin’Dog

Flipped

Bridge to Terabithia

Bud, Not Buddy

Ella Enchanted

Hunger Games

Catching Fire

MockingJay

Jackie’s Wild Seattle

Among the Hidden

Esperanza Rising

Sisters Grimm, Fairy Tale Detectives

Holes

Lunch Money

Zoobreak

Swindle

Spring Forward With Reading

Our students continue to work on improving all aspects of  reading skills in our classes. It is important to note that our classes are in addition to the regular communication arts class and that we provide the students with supplemental instruction. This lets us tailor the material we use to the students’ individual reading levels and to target specific areas for instruction. Also, we can provide periods of reading practice.

The importance of daily reading practice in helping kids who are behind in reading is supported by research. For various reasons, kids sometimes fall behind in reading. The absolute best way for them to “Spring Forward” with their reading levels is to have structured practice. Reading aloud to improve rate, expression, and accuracy is something that has been proven to work to help catch kids up. Try to listen to your child read several times a week. Ask them questions about what they read. The key is to keep them reading!

Our 3rd Family Night is set for March 31. Plan to join us for dinner and reading games!

3-10famnight

Don’t freeze those thinking and reading skills!

Just because it is freezing out there does not mean that our students’  reading and thinking skills should “freeze” too. The best way to keep them from freezing? Just like keeping water pipes from freezing: keep them in use! The 2 or 3 days a week in Title 1 reading classes need to be supplemented with more practice. As little as 10 minutes a day of practice can help to keep students’ skills growing.

The New Year is a good time to look back as well as to look forward. It is a good time to review your child’s reading strengths and weakness. Ask them what progress they think they have made in reading this year. If you haven’t heard your kiddo read aloud lately, ask them to read with you. If they haven’t heard you read aloud lately, read to them.

Remember that your child has been and is being given different resources to practice at home. Our PACT catalogue with a list of more than 20 pairs of books available for check out has been sent home, students have been given a variety of materials to read aloud at home, and many students have even checked out timers to work on their rate. Encourage your child to get back in the swing of practicing their reading at home. Remember that we are here as a resource for you, too.

READ ON!

Reading, Following Written Directions, Giving

Second Family Night of this year!!

December 14 is the date for our mid-year Family Night. Join us for pizza and a great holiday activity! Students and their families will be reading and following directions in order to create a cookie mix that can be given as a gift. They will also be able to create a gift bag for the mix. As always, child care will be available for young children.   Please see attached flyer for more information.  cookieFamnightflyerpdf

 

As the school year progresses, we continue to see more improvement in students’ reading stills. Our classroom instruction still emphasizes fluency and students are working on oral reading skills. If your child isn’t reading aloud to you a couple of times a week, ask them to. Christmas books and stories are a great choice of read alouds. Don’t forget the PACT pairs of books to read with your child.

Non-fiction reading makes up the majority of what students are expected to read, understand, and use throughout middle and high school. The further along students are in school , the more non-fiction reading there is and the more “reading to learn”  they are expected to do. We incorporate various non-fiction books and magazines in our classes to teach and practice non-fiction reading strategies. Encourage your child to read and discuss non-fiction materials. If they can find print material that taps into one of their interests, they may be more motivated to read.

 Blog riddle: Why did the banana go to the doctor? He was not peeling well.

We’re still reading and rolling along

All of our reading students have set personal goals based on their own strengths and needs. They have also developed plans to help them on the road to achieving their goals. It is great to see how some of the kids really take on the responsibility of improving their own reading. If they haven’t shared and discussed their goals with you yet, ask them to. 

Our first semester focus continues to be on reading fluently. By this, we mean reading orally with expression, a good rate, paying attention to punctuation, and making very few errors. Students should all be coming home with something to practice reading out loud with.

The Reading Club (after school on Tues, before school on Thurs) is seeing increased numbers at every meeting! This is great! The Tues after school group is planning a field trip to the library and to Pizza Hut. Details will be sent home with the student.

Blog riddle: What do you call a funny book about chickens? A yolk book! Tell Mrs. Gehring or Mrs. Starkey this riddle for a prize.