Welcome to Room 5!

Scenic Hills Elementary School

R EADING www.ReadingRockets.org

TIPS

Give your child lots of opportunities to read aloud. Inspire your young reader to practice every day! The tips below offer some fun ways you can help your child become a happy and confident reader. Try a new tip each week.

See what works best for your child.

■ Don’t leave home without it.

Bring along a book or magazine any time your child has to wait, such as at a doctor’s office.  Always try to fit in reading!

■ Once is not enough.

Encourage your child to re-read favorite books and poems. Re-reading helps kids read more quickly and accurately.

■ Dig deeper into the story.

Ask your child questions about the story you've just read. Say something like, “Why do you think Clifford did that?”

■ Take control of the television.

It’s difficult for reading to compete with TV and video games. Encourage reading as a free-time activity.

■ Be patient.

When your child is trying to sound out an unfamiliar word, give him or her time to do so.  Remind your child to look closely at the first letter or letters of the word.

■ Pick books that are at the right level.

Help your child pick books that are not too difficult. The aim is to give your child lots of successful reading experiences.

■ Play word games.

Have your child sound out the word as you change it from mat to fat to sat; from sat to sag to sap; and from sap to sip.

■ I read to you, you read to me.

Take turns reading aloud at bedtime.  Kids enjoy this special time with their parents.

■ Gently correct your young reader.

When your child makes a mistake, gently point out the letters he or she overlooked or read incorrectly. Many beginning readers will guess wildly at a word based on its first letter.

■ Talk, talk, talk!

Talk with your child every day about school and things going on around the house. Sprinkle some interesting words into the conversation, and build on words you’ve talked about in the past.

■ Write, write, write!

Ask your child to help you write out the grocery list, a thank you note to Grandma, or to keep a journal of special things that happen at home.  When writing, encourage your child to use the letter and sound patterns he or she is learning at school.

Visit www.ReadingRockets.org for more information on

how you can launch a child into a bright future through reading.

for parents of  First Graders

Reading Rockets is a project of public television station WETA, and is funded by the U.S. Department of Education,

Office of Special Education Programs.

Ways to help your first grader sites:
http://www.pbs.org/parents/readinglanguage/first/talking_milestone_first.html

http://childrensbooks.about.com/library/weekly/aa080501a.htm

http://www.ed.gov/parents/academic/help/tools-for-success/index.html  

W. I L. T.  Book Information

  First Grade Happenings 

Language Arts:  We are working very hard to build up our sight word vocabulary and our decoding skills.  We enjoy reading lots of trade books about organisms to tie into our science unit.  We are learning new strategies to help with comprehension.  We can visualize what the author is writing about, ask questions to clarify an idea, and make connections to our own lives, to other texts and to what we know about the world.  We are also working on synthesizing, making inferences, monitoring our understanding of a text, and identifying the important ideas of a text.  In writing, we are learning to use a good beginning sentence with good supporting details.  We are looking at how we can use our reading strategies to improve our writing.

Math:  We are doing a lot of speed tests to memorize our addition facts and improving our problem solving skills by doing word problems.  As we begin the third marking period, we will be working on our geometry unit followed by fractions.  We enjoy our math games and exploring with our math tools.

Science:  We are studying organisms.  We have started lots of seeds indoors.  With the weather warming up, we will be doing more of our science work in the ecology center.  The ducks are back and we are quite sure that there is a new nest in the tall grasses inside the pond fence. 

Social Studies:  We studied maps, school life of long ago (yes, even before I was a child), and needs and wants.  Right now we are taking a break from social studies while we work hard on organisms.  Before the end of the year we will work on groups we belong to (rights and responsibilities of belonging to those groups) and traditions.

Spanish:  We are learning the names of the months, days of the week, animal names, etc.                                           

                                                                                                                                                                 Emergency Closing Information:

  Our school number is (610)-938-6600.    On KYW (1060 AM) radio, the emergency closing number is   

526.    Also the Springfield School District has a channel on Suburban Cable, Channel 11, which will also broadcast any emergency closings.