Room 10 is
definitely in full swing, and Halloween is quickly becoming the topic of choice during
free time! More information will be coming soon about Halloween festivities.
A few highlights of what we've been working on as of late...
- The children meet with me at the reading table nearly every day. This is a time when they read “just right” books with a small group of children who are at a similar reading level. It is a great way to differentiate and provide instruction based on the varied needs of the children in my room. Among the MANY reading / phonics skills and strategies the children are learning about, one is reading fluency. This is when a reader reads smoothly and with an even tone of voice. The children are working to read like a “river” (with flow and fluency) and not like a “robot” (word by word). This takes time and practice for some children, so don’t be worried if your child isn’t doing it right away. Like many of the skills we’re learning this year, this part of reading doesn’t happen overnight.
- Another important focus area is teaching the children how to retell a story in their own words after they’ve read it. This skill also will take LOTS of practice. Over the next few months we will work on retelling skills: recalling and orally retelling the characters, setting and the main events of a given story or text.
- During our literacy time, the children are learning a wide range of phonics skills. The children and I are studying vowel sounds. We have focused on the short vowel sounds for -a and -i, and will start working on short vowel –o next week. Words like had, dig and got contain these vowel sounds. We continue to learn how each vowel can make a number of different sounds. This can be awfully confusing for children at first but with practice they learn to distinguish the different sounds. We will focus on the vowel sounds for u and e next (like in tug and bed), and then continue to practice all sounds throughout the year. It often takes the entire year before vowel sounds are fully mastered, especially when the long vowel patterns are introduced.
- Your child may have mentioned the “h brothers” to you. If so, this is the study of the letter teams sh, ch, th, wh and ph. The children are learning that these “h brothers” consist of two consonants that make one sound. Encourage your child to look for “h brothers” at home and practice remembering the sounds for each one.
- Our home reading program will start next week. Look for more information soon about BOOKTIME and the best ways you can support your first grade reader at home.
- Our writer’s
workshop block is a favorite time in our day. The children are learning that writers think
first, then picture a story in their mind, and after that put their ideas into
words one part at a time. Learning how
to stretch an idea across several pages and including key details takes lots of
practice. Of course, the children are
also working hard on spelling, spacing, punctuation and organization. This is a tall task indeed, but one that they
are tackling with enthusiasm and persistence.
- During our
math block, the children have been working hard on concepts centered on number
sense, accurate counting, combining numbers and addition problems. The children have learned that we sometimes “count all” to combine two numbers (i.e. 4
blocks and 2 blocks would be counted as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). “Counting on” is a strategy that I’m encouraging children to use to make their
problem solving more efficient. In this
case a child would hold the number 4 in their head and count on saying 5,
6. We are starting to use what we call
“known number facts” to solve other problems.
For example, if you know that 3 + 3 = 6, then you could easily know that
3 + 4 = 7. I will continue to help
children work on building strategies for combining numbers and showing their
work in clear, organized ways when they go to represent their thinking on
paper.
- A couple
of weeks ago I sent home Parent-Teacher Conference reminder slips. If for some reason yours did not make it
home, please let me know and I’ll send another one.
