IS IT REALLY DECEMBER?

Dear Families:
It is hard to believe....but today - December 10th - marked our 65th day of school. We are now in the middle of December and almost in the year 2009. Time certainly does fly. In Class K-207, we are having so much fun with all the learning we have been doing. I hope the children told you that we had a big day yesterday - we launched our Just Right books and tore down the paper that was covering our Leveled Books!! This was certainly an exciting day. Each children received two leveled books close to where they are reading at this point in their reading careers. We want to children to be able to have a "smooth" read. It was a day when the children in Class K-207 learned that they need to become more focused on reading Just Right leveled books conventionally. In the days ahead, we will be learning that not only do the pictures tell the story, but the words do too!!! There are several children in the class who are already beyond this and several who can read high level books conventionally. Yet, there are the majority of the children who need to learn the strategies that good readers use at the beginning of learning to read - looking at the first letter in the word and checking the picture to see if it matches. From there...we learn to look for words within words and use many different strategies to move them forward. Please do not worry if your child is not reading. There are many different levels and, as teachers, we know how to put children together and how to move them forward. I know that I certainly did not read in Kindergarten!

Reading development is characterized by four stages: early emergent, upper emergent, early fluency, and fluency. At the earliest levels, the books have simple language structures, repetitive sentence or phrase patters, few lines of text on a page, strong illustration support, and easier vocabulary. As the levels progress, the books have less repetition, contain more lines of text on a page, and use longer sentences, more contextual support, and more advanced vocabulary.

An important aspect of this reading process used to teach children to read is Guided Reading. What is Guided Reading? Guided Reading is a group approach, involving the teacher with a small group of children of similar reading ability. As teachers, we select a book that is at the children's instructinal reading level and that will introduce or reinforce appropriate reading challenges for that particular group of children. We spend the first part of a Guided Reading session discussing the concepts of the book and scaffolding information. This lays a foundation for reading success. In the early emergent stage, the focus of the guided reading lessons is on developing students' awareness of concepts of print. Children at this stage are just beginning to look at letters and words and to attach sounds to letters. In the early emergent stage, the format of these guided reading lessons continues to support students' use of concepts of print but more emphasis is placed on developing their ability to use sounds and letters to decode words. Children at this stage are also developing their ability to use a variety of cueing systems when reading. This is a time when each child will get a lot of personalized attention from their teacher - no two children are alike and each child may get a different strategy to move them forward in their reading. The teacher has a more one-on-one relationship with the child and the child loves the attention their teacher gives to them. In K-207, we started guilded reading groups and I have met personally with several of the children and hope to meet with all of them by the end of the week. This will be a daily routine both in reading and writing. I hope that I did not bore you with all the details but it is a very exciting time for me and the children. I love to see the daily progress each and every child makes.

In writing, we have started our Small Moment unit. As I told you previously, this is a unit of writing that I love to teach. I love when the children write about true stories that have happened to them and how they ZOOM in on that moment. We will be listening to many stories that have small moments to get ideas about how to write our own.

Today in math, we made our Shape Museum. We looked through our magazines and cut out and pasted our different shapes on our different shaped posters. If the children had a triangle shape poster, then they had to go through magazines looking for triangles. If they had a circle shape poster, then they found and pasted circle shapes. To be honest, it was hard finding triangles in the magazines...the circles were the easiest to find. We had a lot of fun - messy ...but fun. We are now learning about money, measurement, patterns and working daily on our math problems!

In word study, we are working on our sight words. The children are reading these sight words on signs, on walls, and in books. Sight words are everywhere. Please have your children point them out to you as they notice them!

We have started our Firehouse study for our Social Studies Unit. We will be reading and learning a lot of Firehouses and Firemen. We will be making visits to the local firehouse, interviewing firemen and doing lots of research on firetrucks as well.

In January, we will be starting a Winnie the Pooh study. Each week, one child in the class has the opportunity to take our Class Winnie the Pooh home on a Friday and keep him for a week. The children will write about their adventures with Winnie and take a lot of pictures with Winnie. The following Friday, Winnie will be returned - with the class book - and the children will talk to the class about their adventures with Winnie. In the years past, Winnie has been to France, has been in a taxi, has been on a boat and has even been in JAIL! (only just visiting). This study is a lot of fun and teaches the children about responsibility - among other things. At the end of the project, our class goes to Prospect Park to look for Winnie at his house (He always seems to be at the dentist but leaves us a nice note) and have a picnic. I bet you did not know Winne the Pooh lives in Prospect Park - did you???? More on this later.

Have a wonderful week,
Fondly,
Ms. Graham