Announcements: Reading Results

Over the past 2 weeks, I've tested/retested every child on their current reading level. The benchmark for the end of JK is a level 2, and a level 4 for SK. You will have received an update in your child's important bag informing you of what level they are at.

If you have any questions or concerns about your child's reading, I am always here to talk and explain things to you. If you do not agree with your child's reading assessment score, I'd be happy to refer you to our Learning Resource Teacher who can retest your child on the exact same assessment.

Guided reading groups will be readjusted so that students of similar ability levels can work on the same thing. Because we have such a large gap in our reading levels (A- to 12), we obviously work on different things to help them reach the next level (i.e., sounding out words, retelling the story, etc.)

A reminder that if you want to know what to work on to help your child achieve the next reading level you can read the descriptions here under DRA Descriptions.

Home reading books will be sent home at this level, as this is what your child can do independently.  

I've also made a new video to help parents whose children are at an A- and are looking for ideas on how to help them at home.

Literacy: Making Connections

Watch my video below to understand what it means to make connections while we're reading :)

Tuesday November 25th, 2014 Update

Good evening everyone!

I thought I'd give you a mid-week update on some happenings in our classroom :)

Following Classroom Rules

In our classroom, we have 5 rules:

1. Respect yourself, others, and the class
2. Use your manners
3. Listening ears
4. Raise your hand to speak
5. Clean up after yourself

Miss Smith and I notice when students are following the rules, and also when they are not. Today, I was very upset to see this at one of our table activities.

As you can see, the bin was coloured on and the label was scratched. We aren't sure who did this, but we know it was this morning at the creative table during table activities. No one admitted to doing it and we still don't know. I sat down with students and explained to them how sad this made me. We talked about how these are things I make for them to use and pay for with my own money, and it really hurts my feelings to see one of our students treating our materials like this. I really hope we don't see this happen again. 

All Aboard the Friend Ship!

Today we launched our "Friend Ship" theme; a tool we will use in our classroom to teach good character amongst students. We had a lot of fun introducing students to the Friend Ship. We learned that Mr. Giggles, our class mascot, was the captain of the ship, and he's going to teach us all about what being a great friend looks like. We invited all students to come on board the Friend Ship, and of course everyone was thrilled! To make them official pirates on the ship, we gave each student an eye patch. This eye patch represents their willingness to try and be the best friend they can be, with help from Mr. Giggles, Miss Smith, and myself :)

We have 5 rules on the Friend Ship (these are different from our class rules). In order to be a good friend, we must:

1. Use kind words

2. Share with our friends

3. Help our friends

4. Listen to our friends

5. Be happy for our friends

Over the next couple of months, we will be having lessons that specifically teach to these rules. What does it look and sound like to use kind words? To share? We are excited to use this theme to help teach some of these concepts :) We hope everyone is on board with learning to be a good friend, and no one is left stranded on the island!

I don't think the eye patches were very comfortable, and this may be my favourite picture yet ;)

Literacy Update

We have finished learning about Mr. H and his 4 friends! But that doesn't mean we can forget about them! This week, we've learned about /wh/ and /th/.

/wh/: Miss W and Mr. H enjoy spending time with each other, but when they’re together, Mr. H finds that Miss W does all the talking- he can’t even get a word in! Therefore you only hear the sound she makes - /w/. The only exception to this rule is the word ‘who’ where you hear Mr. H instead.

/th/ Th: Miss T and Mr. H love spending time together, but they often don’t agree on things, so they tend to get in a lot of fights. Therefore, they stick their tongues out and make the /th/ sound. With /th/, there is what we call a voiced and unvoiced /th/. A voiced /th/ uses your voice like in the words ‘that’ and ‘there’. An unvoiced /th/ just uses your breath like in the words ‘theatre’ and ‘think’.

Printing Practice

Believe it or not, teaching kids the formation of letters isn't an expectation in the Kindergarten curriculum. It does come about during the day when students are writing, but we don't necessarily sit them down and teach them how to make the letters. I would like to offer some support for you to work on printing with your child at home. If you would like a copy of a printing practice book, please send me a note. It's just rote practice of printing the letters. If you help your child with this at home, then I can spend more of my time teaching them how to use these letters to compose words instead of actually printing them. Like I said, it does come about naturally through writing, but extra practice never hurts :) Please always encourage your child to write their letters from the top down- never starting at the bottom.

That's all for now! Have a nice night :)

~ Miss Pliura

Literacy Update: Reading Strategies & Letter Reversals!

Good evening everyone :)

Today during our literacy lesson, we learned about our first reading strategy. We will be learning 8 of them throughout the year. These are strategies we will practice in class and hope that students use on their own when reading. We've made each strategy into an animal character. Today, we learned about Peeking Pig!     

Peeking Pig is the first and easiest strategy to use for beginner readers. The strategy is quite simple and self-explanatory: look at the pictures to help you solve difficult words. This strategy ties in nicely with the next strategy we will be learning about which involves looking at the first letter of a word. Please try and reinforce this reading strategy at home during your Snuggle Up and Read time. Using the pictures in a book is a very important and helpful reading strategy :)

Letter Reversals

We've already learned a way to differentiate between b and d. The other two letters that often get confused are q and p. Here are the songs we learned to help us remember the difference :)

Pickle and pizza both start with the /p/ sound :) Remember to reinforce writing from left to right and top to bottom (ex: draw the "pickle" first and then the "pizza" to the right of it so they don't get confused).

This one may be a bit tricky for students to remember since they may or may not know what a quarter or a quill is, but with some practice, they'll remember! Remember that these are just helpful tips that can be used if you're finding your child is getting confused between the letters. 

Stay tuned for more updates!

~ Miss Pliura & Mrs. Tortola

Literacy Update: Sticky Vowels & Letter Reversals!

Hi everyone!

Here's an update for you on what we've been doing during literacy :)

Vowels & CVC Words

For the month of October, we are going to continue to work on letter/sound correspondence and begin to start "pushing" these sounds together to make words. We have finished watching The Talking Word Factory which taught us about the vowels! (I promise I don't just show videos!) In the video, the vowels are known as "sticky letters" because they stick letters together to make words- every word needs one! Click the video to watch the song :)

We will be starting with CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words; sounding them out to read them, as well as sounding them out to spell them. They are the easiest words to begin with. The video made words like bat, cat, and hat and used Bammy (the machine) to bam them together- I think this concept really helped some students to understand that a word is just letters pushed together. And although it sounds like 1 sound, it's actually 3 sounds pushed together :)

After we learned about the vowels/"sticky letters", we went off to our literacy centres to try making some of our own words. Here is an awesome video I filmed of some of our friends making their own CVC words by "bamming" them together. This would be a great activity to practice at home!!

Nathan was making some CVC words on his own and wanted to make the word hat. You'll notice that when he was looking for the letter that made the /a/ sound that David handed him the letter a. I love how Nathan knew right off the bat that the letter t made the /t/ sound. And then he "bammed" them together to make a word- great job boys!

Learning about vowels is incredibly important, for every word needs one and every syllable needs one. We will continue to practice making words using the "sticky letters" in class :)

Letter Reversals

On Thursday, we learned 2 new songs that helped us remember the difference between a 'b' and a 'd'. They look so similar so this is a fun way to remember how they are printed :) I can't think of what tune the song goes to, but hopefully your child will be able to sing it to you :)

During literacy centres, I wanted students to practice printing their 'b's and 'd's in the sand. They did a great job! Continue to practice printing at home with pencil and paper, or in something more fun like flour, shaving cream, or on a foggy mirror :)

I also wanted to include this video I took of Alyssa. She did a great job trying to spell her mom's name!! :)

Thanks for checking in! Happy reading!

~ Miss Pliura & Mrs. Tortola

Raz-Kids!

Hi everyone,

We are happy to announce that our class now has a subscription to Raz-Kids! Raz-Kids is a website that gives you access to hundreds of eBooks using the school's subscription! Students can read, listen to, and even self-record reading these books. Raz-Kids is accessible online on a computer, tablet, or phone. There is also an iPad app for it :)

http://www.raz-kids.com/main/Login 

We are very fortunate to have this subscription as it allows us to have access to even more books at home and at school. By now, all parents should have received an information letter with their child's login information attached. All you have to do is log on and start reading!

Note: Raz Books can be counted as books in your child's Home Reading Log. Please put (RAZ) next to it so we know.

If you need help with the website or have any questions, please let one of us know so we can help :)

Thanks!

Miss Pliura & Mrs. Tortola

PS: Scholastic Orders are due on Wednesday, October 15th :)

Literacy Support Package

At the beginning of September, each family will be receiving a package I created called "Helping Your Child Learn to Read". It is a package I have created over the past year as a Literacy Support Teacher that I hope will help you support your child with their reading. Please download your advanced electronic copy here!

Happy reading!

- Miss Pliura

Download Here!