First Nine Weeks Mrs. Linden Title 1 Reading Towslee Grades K-3 (330) Conferences are quickly approaching. I will be available on November 3 for conferences. If I am not in your child’s classroom during your conference, feel free to stop in room 80 to meet me. Lexia information was sent home last week in the Title 1 folders. Please, let me know if you did not receive a username and password. The students really benefit from using this program. Many of them ask to work on Lexia at school. News From Kindergarten The Kindergartners have been working very hard on learning their letters and sight words. We are following the Orton-Gillingham sequence with letter identification. They have worked with c, o, a, d, this nine weeks. The students are doing an excellent job learning all of the letters. We will continue working on the first quarter sight words into the second nine weeks. Please, try to practice these words. Sight words need to be memorized because many of them are rule breakers, and we cannot sound them out. The first nine weeks are finished and the students are well into the school year. The beginning of the year is busy because we spend a lot of time testing the students and determining which students qualify for Title 1. Our routines and procedures are nicely in place and everyone is working hard in class. I would like to thank all of the parents that attended our Fall Parent Meeting. I know everyone has a busy schedule so I really appreciate your attendance. First Grade News The first graders have been very busy working on a consonant digraph unit. They have mastered the sounds that ch, sh, and th make. They even know the difference between the hard th and the soft th. We have read stories that showcase these sounds and have worked with many word sorts. Currently, we are in the middle of a read aloud of Junie B., First Grader. The students really enjoy Junie B’s humor. Just like Junie, they are using evidence from the story to collect information in their first grade journal.

First Nine Weeks Newsletter Second grade news The second graders have also been busy working on reviewing the consonant digraphs. They have worked with ch, sh, and th. Ask them to show you the trick for determining the hard and soft th. They have also read stories that showcase these sounds. While reading these stories, they have been working with locating the main idea and details of a topic. This is a tricky skill for most second graders so we will be revisiting this skill throughout the year. Third Grade News The third graders began the year working with the suffix –ed. This is a tricky suffix to use because it makes three different sounds. We read A Dog’s Best Friend to help us hunt for words that use –ed and to analyze how the actions of the characters contribute to the sequence of events in the story. Currently, we are working on the bossy r. The students already learned the ir, er, and ur make the same sound. Conferences are quickly approaching. I will be available on both conference nights, October 30 and November 3. Please, stop by my room after you have met with your child’s teacher Mrs. Linden Towslee Grades K-3 (330) Please, refer to the homework calendar that was sent home last month. I will also post in on my webpage incase you need another copy. This will help you know when to send in your child’s Title 1 folder. The students are given two weeks to complete each assignment. Thank you for helping your child complete their homework. It is so important for them to practice these reading skills at home. Many students are getting close to earning a prize! Every time they return something to me, they earn a punch in their homework card. Repeated Readings Both the second and third graders are participating in repeated readings. This entails reading a story cold, which means that we record how many words they read in a minute with a story that they have never read before. Then, we use fun activities like fluency circles and partner reading to help us practice the story. We spend about two weeks on each story. The last step is a hot read. This means I listen to them read the same story again for one minute and we compare their cold read to their hot read. Everyone keeps track of their progress on their Fluency Chart. This is a great way to improve reading fluency.