AR stands for accelerated reader. This is a program we use at our school to hold students accountable for their reading comprehension. The AR database has TONS and TONS of books. Almost every book at your house, at the library, or at the bookstore is an AR book. The students MUST earn 25 AR points each grading period as part of their reading grade.
Points are earned by reading a book carefully and then taking an AR quiz on the computer. Every book is worth a different amount of points based on the reading level difficulty. Most picture books are worth 1/2 a point, while smaller chapter books are around 1-2 points and larger chapter books being 5-10 points. Students should be reading 20 minutes at a time for 5 nights a week at home per their reading log. They also have "read around the room" time in our classroom. These are times they should be reading an AR book and working toward their 25 point goal. I also read a chapter book to them every day that is worth many points. I believe our current chapter book is 7-8 points. So if they are listening carefully during read aloud, they should be able to earn those points easily. Also, the leveled readers they are working through during small group time are also AR books. There are many opportunities for students to earn these points. However, many students wait until the last minute to try to get their AR points and this can be very stressful. Even though quizzes cannot be taken at home, you can look up your child's AR points from home at any time. I will be sending home a parent letter with your child's AR username and password later this week so that you can login to check your child's AR points. You can also sign up to receive an email every time your child takes a quiz over a book, so that you know if they are passing their quizzes. I am always happy to delete a quiz if you would like your child to retake it. :) Keeping up with AR points is a responsibility. It is a goal your child will work towards each grading period...and of course it's a special bead for their chain when they earn that goal! :) Please encourage your child to read carefully at home and to take AR quizzes once they are finished with a book at school. :) If you are ever unsure if a book is an AR book, there is a link on my website to the AR Bookfinder. Simply type in the title and it will tell you how many points the book is worth. :) Until next time...happy reading! Fluent reading...we all want our children to become fluent readers and as a teacher this is a major goal of mine for your child as well. We have a special time each day that we devote to the practice of fluent reading. Having good fluency means reading the words accurately, with expression, and using the right pace. Many fourth graders find it strange that I require them to read out loud every day, but it is this practice that helps them become fluent readers. Too many intermediate kids only read silently in their heads! Due to the large amount of SILENT reading, their oral fluency is becoming rusty. In order to develop fluent readers we follow a weekly routine.
Every week I choose a new poem for us to read and dissect together. Sometimes the poems are lighthearted and silly, and other times they are deep and serious. We attack these poems as both readers and writers. Mondays: We choral read the poem out loud together. We then begin to SNOT on the poem by discussing the meaning and looking for interesting words. Tuesdays: We echo read the poem together. This means I read one stanza at a time and then the class echos me after each stanza. We continue to SNOT on our poem looking for figurative language or discussing the poet's word choice. Wednesdays: We "whisper phone" the poem. Each student receives his/her own whisper phone to read the poem with and practice. The whisper phone allows the child to hear his/her reading. This allows them to hear mistakes and fix them. We continue to SNOT on the poem and discuss it on this day. Thursday: We read the poem together with a partner and discuss while taking more notes. Friday: Share out day! Volunteers come up to the front of the class to read part of the poem with their best reading! We design a creative cheer to use when each group finishes. It's a great way for kids to be brave and read in front of the class, while practicing all those fluency skills from the week! We then take an OPEN NOTE quiz over the poem. :) Fluency is so important! Fluent reading directly affects comprehension. We will practice this skill daily all year! I highly encourage you to listen to your child read throughout the week. :) That's a disgusting title isn't it? :) Well, hopefully your child has come home talking about how we SNOT all the time in fourth grade! SNOT is an acronym that stands for:
Small Notes On the Text As a reader, it's important to engage with a text. Gone are the days of just reading the words...now it's time to THINK about what those words mean and what the text is saying! When we read a text together in class, we SNOT all over it! We circle words and draw lines to synonyms. We take notes in the margins about what we think characters are feeling or how the text is making us feel. We write down our thoughts ALL OVER THE TEXT. We dissect it paragraph by paragraph so that by the time we are finished we have made connections all over it! We notice interesting words, we ask questions, and we figure out what the text is talking about. It's important to think about what we are reading. Why did the author write it? What did we learn? Does it remind us of anything else we have read? We train our 4th graders to do this by writing down their thoughts and connections as they read. At the beginning of the year, the students are always a little more shy about writing down their connections as they read. We do a lot of our "SNOTTING" together. However, as the year progresses, they grow braver and more confident as they practice to actively think every time they read until it literally becomes a reading habit! And what a wonderful habit to build! Good readers THINK about what they are reading! I always tell the kids that when you get finished, it should look like you "blew your nose all over your passage!" Gross- but the kids love it and it's a metaphor they never forget! :) Happy Reading! The SNOT Trainer :) Homework. The dreaded word that makes kids moan and groan in agony across America. So why do I give it and what is my policy? Well, I believe there is a happy medium found in homework. It should not take HOURS upon HOURS of a child's evening to complete. THAT is miserable for everyone. However, a healthy amount of homework promotes good work ethic, independent practice, responsibility, and school-to-home communication.
My homework policy is that homework is practice. It is a safe place to try and make mistakes without it killing your grade. I DO give a grade for homework, but it is a completion grade. I give points for it being completed well with an obvious effort. It is absolutely OK to help your child with their homework. In fact, I encourage you to look over your child's homework every night. It shows you what we are studying in class, it allows you to see your child's progress on a particular skill, and it provides an opportunity for you to help your child fix mistakes. The worst thing that can happen is for a child to do an assignment completely wrong and therefore train his/her brain the wrong way to do something. By looking over your child's homework, you are giving them a chance to fix their mistakes and therefore retraining their brain on the correct way to do something. I collect your child's homework from them personally every day. There are no trays for them to turn it in to or places for it to get lost. It goes from them straight to me. :) I will always go through and check for correctness on every assignment. Perfect homework is given a star at the top and sent home at the end of the week. Homework that needs corrections is given back to the student to correct then turned back in to me to check. I try very hard to get through as many corrections each week as I can. (Checking your child's homework is one way that you can help me reduce the number of corrections.) I will often put an OK over an "x" once a problem has been corrected. Then, I send home all work at the end of each week on Friday. Sometimes an assignment will be returned home without all of the necessary corrections. I truly try to get as many things corrected as time allows. However, being prompt and having work returned to the student and you is also a priority for me. So, I try very hard not to keep an assignment longer than a week. Hopefully, homework will become a healthy work habit for your child and prepare them for middle school and high school. I try very hard to remember that elementary kids are still young, and I keep that in mind when I choose the amount of homework to assign. |
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September 2018
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