1. Important Information
Title 1 Reading
2nd Nine Weeks
Mrs. Linden
January 6, 2016
Kindergarten:
The Kindergarten students are working so hard in class to learn their letters. We are continuing to follow the Orton- Gillingham program for learning letters and sounds. So far we have learned c, o, a, d, g, m, l, h, t, i, and j. The students are working on recognizing, naming, writing, and producing the sound that the letter makes. We do “The 3 Part Drill” daily to help the students learn their letters and sounds. Ask your child to explain the steps in the 3 part drill. They have it mastered now.
They are also learning more sight words or red words. Please, continue to practice these words at home. They take some time to memorize since most of these words are rule breakers.
2nd Grade:
The second graders had a very busy nine weeks. They read many fiction stories so that they could practice locating and describing the setting and characters of the story. We also spent some time reading nonfiction texts so that we could determine the main topic of the text.
The students learned many different sounds using the Orton-Gillingham program. We worked on reading and spelling words that contain three letter initial consonant blends (thr, scr). The students have been doing a great job with reading short vowel words so we started our unit on long vowels with reading and spelling words that contain magic e. This unit will continue into the next nine weeks.
The students are continuing with their repeated readings. Thank you for helping them read these passages at home.
Important Information
I will again be available for conferences on Thursday, January 26 and February 2. I do not have a conference schedule. Please, stop by my room before or after your conference with your child’s homeroom teacher.
Thank you for your help with homework folders. They will continue to go home weekly on Mondays for students in grades K-3. I really appreciate all of your help with working with your child and for returning the folder in a timely manner. Please, remember that dates are on the homework only to help keep the student organized. This lets them know that they will get a new assignment every Monday. I know that homework in their classroom comes first so assignments can be turned in late.

2. Fourth Grade:
Third Grade:
The third graders have spent a lot of time this quarter reading fiction texts. We started out by reading two different Halloween stories. Then, the students used the information from the story to compare and contrast the themes, plot, and characters. They used venn diagrams to help them organize this information.
They also read one of my favorite Thanksgiving stories, Thanksgiving at the Tappletons’. In this story, the Tappleton family has a crazy, mixed up Thanksgiving. However, they learn that Thanksgiving isn’t about what’s on the platters, but who you get to spend it with. We used this story to practice retelling the important events of a story. We also spent a lot of time describing the characters and explaining how the actions of the characters contribute to the events of the story.
The students spent a lot of time preparing for the upcoming AIR test. We are reading more complex text to help us get ready. As we are reading these complex texts, we are practicing different strategies to help us locate information in the text. We are asking questions while previewing the text, we are circling new vocabulary words, and we are locating evidence to ensure that are answers match the questions.
Repeated readings will begin again in January. Thank you in advance for reading these passages with your child.
The fourth graders have spent much of the nine weeks reading and analyzing folktales. We focused on two main folktales both written by Tomie DePaola, a famous author known for his many folktales. They read The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush and The Legend of the Bluebonnet to learn about what makes a folktale different from other genres of literature. We also used the information in these stories to determine how to explain the theme of a story instead of just explaining the topic of the story. We compared and contrasted the themes, characters, and plots of each story.
Each quarter they will work with a different set of Greek and Latin Roots. This quarter we worked with nat, ped, loc, sign and cogn. It is important to know the meanings of these roots because it helps the students understand the meaning of words. This skill also helps them chunk words together when reading words. We have been using the Read&Write app for Google Chrome to help us find the meaning of words that contain these roots. The students enjoy playing Quizlet Live to practice their roots. Ask your child about Quizlet Live. It is one of their favorite class activities.
The 4th Graders started using Google Classroom this quarter. They will be using this to complete class assignments and also to take weekly 4 Item Assessments.
Contact Information:
Towslee Elementary
(330)