I have singed our class up online and will send their username and password home so you can log their reading online each day.
Thank you for encouraging your child to read and supporting our efforts to make reading fun!
720-972-2340 |
We sent home a reading log and pledge form on Friday about Scholastic's Paws for Reading.
I have singed our class up online and will send their username and password home so you can log their reading online each day. Thank you for encouraging your child to read and supporting our efforts to make reading fun!
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Anythink Library
Today librarians from the Anythink Library at Wright Farms came to Stellar to tell the children about their summer reading programs. Each child was given a lanyard with the Anythink website on it. Check out the calendar of FREE events on their website using this link or drop by to pick up information about all that's going on this summer at Anythink Libraries. Barnes & Noble Yesterday the children took home a flier about Barnes & Nobles' summer reading program. Children keep track of 8 books they read over the summer. When they've completed that, they may take their record sheet into any Barnes & Noble Bookstore to receive a FREE book! Check their website or see your local store for more details. Encourage your child to keep their BRAINS SHARP over the summer. Make reading, math, and writing part of your daily routine. Keeping their brains active will help ease their transition to 3rd grade. "Summer Fever" wears off! Many students and parents comment on how boredom grows once kids have played all their games and watched endless amounts of TV.
In addition to the volumes of online resources that may be accessed through the Stellar Website, it has been my goal to make resources available for my students to provide extra practice on our class website. They have been introduced to these activities in class. Today they recorded their logins and passwords on a half-sheet of paper. Stapled to it is the CODE for the new Fraboom. These are ONLY resources. There are many other things you can do to make reading, writing, and math part of your life this summer. READING Many bookstores and libraries have summer programs to promote reading. Today the kids took home information about the Barnes & Noble program. MATH Find ways to incorporate math into your daily routine. Telling time, counting money, making change, solving number stories. counting up and back through 1000, skip counting. WRITING Like reading, writing develops with practice. If writing is NOT part of their life, its a struggle in school too. Give your child a journal. Have them write about their summer adventures and fun. They can write letters. Ask them to write about a book they read. Fraboom is an online children's museum with a variety of content and activities including...drawing, interactive books, live classes, and games.
Today, the children took home a CODE to register for a FREE 90-day Gold Membership. All you have to do to start exploring everything Fraboom has to offer, is visit www.fraboom.com and enter the CODE on the card your child brings home. When the 90-day trial membership expires, they will still have access to the parts of Fraboom that are FREE. There are many components to Fraboom that can be accessed for FREE. With the special Gold Membership trial you will have access to EVERYTHING Fraboom has to offer for 90 days. We used Fraboom today in class. On Thursday, we will join a live class about bugs! School is winding down and summer will be here before you know it. It is so so important for children to continue practicing and learning over the summer to maintain the growth they have achieved. Keep reading!
Scholastic Book Clubs is an affordable resource for children's books. Don't miss out on the last opportunity to order books for summer. Orders are needed by Wednesday, May 16th in order to get them by the last day of school. Go to www.scholastic.com/bookclubs Use the class activation code: HTK43 Over the summer, encourage your child to engage in Book Clubs on Edmodo. 1. I will read some children's books over the summer and invite children to participate. They may check out the book from the local library or purchase it from a store. 2. Children may also communicate with their friends about books they are reading. Hearing about what their friends are reading will encourage them to read and provide them with suggestions of possible choices. In 2nd Grade is often the time when reading instruction shifts from "learning how to read" to "reading to understand." The biggest challenge I face as a teacher is helping children navigate this transition. Up until now, their idea of reading was being able to read the words. Once they feel secure with decoding children think, "I'm done; I know how to read the words now." They think reading is about reading words in longer and thicker books or reading 3rd, 4th, & 5th grade texts. When decoding has been mastered and a student is able to read just about anything they encounter, they often do just that. The point to reading is comprehension, but most children don't truly understand these harder books at the level they are meant to be understood. It is important for children to "think" while they read and move beyond getting the "gist" of it. Starting this transition with a reader feels a lot like throwing on the breaks so to speak. We need to practice thinking deeply with a 2nd or 3rd grade book before trying to read a 4th or 5th grade book. Books written for higher grades often contain content that is beyond the developmental level of a 2nd grader. The characters are older and are thinking and acting differently than them. Historical content and information from higher grades often makes it difficult for younger readers to understand what is happening in context. Readers who reach this level in 2nd grade are just begining their journey as a reader who can think deeply, ask thoughtful questions, and discuss what they've read in a meaningful way with other readers. I try to guide these students in a discussion about what they've read rather than having them just retell what they've read. I often begin by asking them what they were thinking or wondering while they read. Below you can listen to the discussion that a reading group is having about a chapter they read. There are 3 areas of focus in reading development during the early years of education: Decoding, Fluency, & Comprehension.
Decoding tends to be the focal point during the initial period of learning how to read because children need to be able to recognize and decode the words they encounter. Instruction is strategic as children are guided to use a variety of strategies when they encounter an unknown word. Fluency relates to the ability to read smoothly, with few errors, and with expression. Once children have learned how to decode and recognize words quickly, they are able to practice reading fluency. When a listener can comprehend a story that has been read aloud to them by someone else as well as (or better) then they would have by reading it to themselves, the reader is fluent. This is evidenced when adults read aloud to children and children understand better than when they read it to themselves. This is because the adult is demonstrating good fluency. Comprehension is the ability to understand what we read. There are two basic levels of reading comprehension: Literal & Inferential. Literal comprehension is straightforward. Young readers develop understanding at the literal level first. They can recall the characters, setting, plot (or main events), and conclusion. The lower level texts have a simple plot structure, making them fairly easy to retell and comprehend at a basic level. As the level of text goes up, the text become more complex and comprehension begins to extend beyond the literal level. This is when comprehension becomes inferential. At this deeper level of comprehension, readers consider things that are not explicitly stated in the text. They think beyond the text when they wonder about the character's feelings & actions. Higher level comprehension occurs when readers think and wonder while they read. When readers ask questions, infer, draw conclusions, consider the author's purpose, and visualize their comprehension goes beyond what the text actually says and becomes reflective and thoughtful. This is the ultimate goal of reading. Early in the year we learned how to "tune in" to interesting words when we read. The idea of choosing words carefully in our writing is called Word Choice. Proficient 2nd grade writing must include:
* specific nouns * action verbs * adjectives that create a sensory image for the reader * words that stretch beyond the writers spelling ability At home, please encourage your child to "tune in" to interesting words that they could use in their writing. This may happen when you read or during conversation. We are making lists of words in our Writer's Notebook. Hopefully, this will boost the quality of the Word Choice in our writing. Thank you! |