Next Week In Our Classroom...

Monday Oct. 3rd- Music Class in the afternoon. Also we have a school spitit night @ Red Elephant on San Jose Blvd from 5-8...Hope to see you there!!!

Tuesday Oct. 4th- Library class, be sure to bring back your currently checked out book in order to be able to check out a new selection.

Wednesday Oct. 5th-Early Dismissal @ 1:45

How to Read With Your Child

Choose the right book using the “Five Finger Rule.” Have your child open the book to any page in the middle of the book and read that page. Each time he/she comes to a word they does not know they should hold up one finger. If she gets to five fingers before they finished reading the page, the book is too hard. If he/she doesn’t hold up any fingers, the book is probably easy for your child and can be used to build reading fluency. If they holds up two or three fingers, the book is likely to be a good level for her reading to grow.

Use “sound” strategies to tackle a new word.

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  Ask your child to sound out an unknown word. Look at the letters in a difficult word and have your child pronounce each sound, or “phoneme.” Then see if he/she can blend the sounds together to pronounce the word.


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  Help them memorize irregular words. Explain that words like “where,” “hour” or “sign” are hard to sound out since they don’t follow normal sound patterns. Point these words out when you’re reading to help your child learn to recognize them on his own.

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  Use the story to help your child learn.


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  Ask your child what word or idea would make sense in the plot of the story when he gets stuck on an unfamiliar word.


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  Encourage your child to look at illustrations, pictures, or titles to figure out the meaning of new words.


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  Challenge your child to figure our new words, but always supply the word before he becomes frustrated.


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  After your child has read a story, reread it aloud yourself, so that he can enjoy it without interruption.

**Ask your child to retell the story starting from the beginning to the end.

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  Be a good role model. Let your child see you reading, and share excitement when you enjoy a great book of your own.

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  Make reading a priority. Whether is 10 minutes every night before bed, please listen to your child read daily.

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  Make reading fun. Play around with funny voices to impersonate animals or unusual characters in stories.

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  Keep reading aloud to your child. Don’t stop reading aloud to your child once they learns to read by herself. When you take a turn at reading, you let your child enjoy books that are beyond her independent reading level and build vocabulary to exposing her to new words. Reading aloud is also a chance for you to model reading smoothly and with expression

Upcoming Events in Room # 135

Wow time is flying by....We are still working on beginning of the year assessments and should be wrapping that up by the end of the week. All testing results will be either sent home or discussed during a Parent/Teacher Conference.

Here are some upcoming events for you to note:

Open House- Thursday September 15th from 6:30-7:30

P.E.- Friday Spetember 16th (Please wear appropriate shoes and clothing to participate)

Music- Monday September 19th

Early Dismissal- Wednesday September 21st @ 1:45

Media- Thursday September 22

Progress Reports go home- Friday September 23 (please sign and return)

I hope to see everybody @ Open House!

What a great start!

Parents,

Thank you for all your assistance in making the start of your child's 1st grade year great!!
If you haven't finished filling out the papers in the folder (including pages in the code of conduct booklet) please do so as soon as possible.

Please have all supplies in to the classroom by Friday 8-26-11.

The homework didn't get copied off in time this week. I know it was sent home on Wednesday. If you can have it done by this Friday great but if you need more time I will collect it up until next Friday when H.W. # 2 is due.

Homework # 2 will go home tomorrow (Friday) and is due back on the following Friday (9-2-11)

I have sent home a Scholastic book flyer. This is such a great way for you to get your child excited about reading as well as help us earn FREE books for our classroom. This is how I build my classroom library to make a variety of book available for your children to enjoy. Even just buying 1 book (as low as $.99) can really make your child excited.

The resource schedule is going to be different then it was last year. We are on a track not a weekly rotation. So we will not have resource on the same day every week i.e. (Thursday = p.e. this will not happen the same every week anymore). Next week (8/29/11-9/2/11) we have a resource on Wednesday @ 12:40 (Music) that is the only resource for that week.

Please be sure to check the blog weekly for updates about the classroom.

Thank you,
Ms. McDonnell
mcdonnellv@duvalschools.org