November Update: Math

As we are approaching the Thanksgiving holiday and beginning a long weekend, I wanted to share an update on math.  Many grades are beginning new units in December.  Being aware of the concepts and topics to be taught can help you at home!

Kindergarten:

Students are moving on to concepts involving measurement.


Grade 1:

Students are working on finishing a unit on shapes and their attributes.  They will soon be returning to addition and subtraction within 20.  They will need to show understanding of the values of numbers 1-20 as well how to solve word problems.


Grade 2:

Students are learning addition and subtraction with 100.  They will have to solve problems with and without regrouping.  Students also need to solve word problems by deciding if they are putting together, taking apart or comparing.


Grade 3:

It is all about fluency with math facts.  Students will also learn how multiplication and division are related so they can easily acquire facts. 


Grade 4:

Students in grade 4 are applying what they learned about multiplication and division to be able to compute using larger numbers.  They will learn long division.  Students will also be expected to solve word problems using multiplication and division.


It is important to have your children continue to work on memorizing facts.  Having that fluency will help them be able to save brain energy to solve more complex problems.  Talking to them about real life concepts like putting together or taking away as well as how to solve problems in groups can help them make sense of problem solving.  For example, if you are eating a pizza.  You can ask questions involving addition and subtracting such as, "How many pieces did _______ eat?  How many pieces are left?"  You can also multiply by asking, "If we have 4 family members and each one gets 3 pieces of pizza, how many pieces will be needed?"

As always, feel free to contact us if you are looking for more information!

Oral Reading Opportunities

Oral reading, or reading aloud, is a critical component to increasing your child's fluency.  When students read aloud, they hear the words they are saying and often are able to correct themselves when they notice something doesn't sound quite right.  They also are given an opportunity to improve their expression.  When they read aloud, students will try to adjust expression accordingly to convey meaning.  It is so important to give students as many opportunities to read aloud as they can.  Some simple ideas for this include:

• Have your child read to you at bedtime for ten minutes, or read every other page
• While you're cooking, have your child sit at the table and read for a few minutes aloud to you
• Your student can take turns reading to different members of the family...younger siblings are great for this!

When your child reads aloud, they often correct their own mistakes.  If they don't correct a mistake, oral reading gives you an opportunity to give your child corrective feedback.  For example, "I noticed you said the word 'carpet'.  Let's look at that word again.  It has a 'ch' at the beginning.  What word could it be?  Let's reread and see if ____ makes sense." 

Oral reading is a window that lets you see inside your child's reading process.  When they read aloud, we are able to see what things they need help with.  We encourage you to give your students opportunities to read aloud at home.  It can be a great experience for all involved!

Writing

Setting a purpose for writing and picking an audience to target helps a writer generate a focused plan.  When writers consider their audience and why they are writing, it helps to help give the student a clear vision for their writing piece.  For example, some students worked on creating a Thanksgiving card to show their appreciation for a loved one.  Before beginning this writing task, they considered their audience, the person they picked to write to, and the purpose of their writing piece, to express their gratitude. This prewriting technique helped them focus their ideas.  This technique works for all genres of writing, whether it be a non-fiction or fiction writing task.

Making Connections while Reading

In order for students to gain a deep understanding of something they are reading, it is important for them to make connections.  Making connections is a skill that improves a child's comprehension of what they are reading and helps them to appreciate the text.

Teachers and parents can help a student comprehend by stopping after a few pages or paragraphs and asking questions that guide students to making a connection.

There are three basic types of connections:

1. Text-to-self connections: Making a connection between the text and themselves or their own life/experiences
2. Text-to-text connections: Making a connection between the text they are reading and another text that they have read
3. Text-to-world connections: Making a connection between the text and the world that they know around them

To help your child make connections, there are several questions you can ask them such as:

• That character seems to be feeling scared.  What was a time you felt scared before?
• The ending of that book surprised me.  Remember that other book we read where the ending was such a surprise? What was the name of that book?
• It looks like this book is talking about recycling.  A lot of towns recycle in different ways...what are some ways we recycle in Newington?

Making connections with a text is a great way to improve your child's comprehension, and it is also a wonderful way to have a discussion with your youngster!

For more information and tips, visit the following link:

http://www.scholastic.com/parents/blogs/scholastic-parents-raise-reader/help-your-kids-connect-to-books-they-read

We hope this helps!

Math Problem Solving Strategy: RICE

Solving word problems in math can be quite challenging.  It requires abstract thinking and a multiple step process.  Having a consistent way to solve word problems can help students be more successful.  We have found a great strategy called the RICE method that we have been teaching to students. 

RICE is an acronym for the following problem solving steps:

 

We have been teaching the steps of RICE to help students solve one step problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  Here is a great video that breaks the strategy down.

 

 

R i-c-e problem solving strategy from Cathy Whitehead

 

 

We hope you enjoyed learning about RICE and how it can help students.

Improving Sight Word Recognition

One part of reading fluently is being able to recognize sight words automatically.  Sight words, also known as high-frequency words, are words that are commonly used in text.  When students can recognize these words automatically, it helps them to read a text in a smooth manner.

Lists of sight words are available in many forms.  Fry sight words and Dolch sight words are the most commonly used lists.  These words can be found at the following websites:

- Fry words: http://www.k12reader.com/subject/sight-words/fry-words/

-Dolch words: http://www.k12reader.com/dolch-word-list/

Please feel free to contact your teacher to find out which list of words your child would benefit from practicing the most.  We can provide you with what words they currently are struggling with and also tell you which words that they know well!

Practicing sight words does not have to be a boring task.  You can make it fun.  The following are games you can play with your child:

1. Beat the Clock: Write the words down on index cards.  Time your student going through the flashcards and see how long it takes them.  Then, see if they can beat their time the next time.  Students love trying to read all the words before the timer goes off!  You can also play a different way.  Set the time for 30 seconds or a minute (whatever time you think) and see how many words they can read in that time.  The next time, try to read more words in the same amount of time.  Students are often motivated when trying to beat their own personal bests.

2. Memory: Make 2 sets of sight word flash cards.  Use these cards to play Memory with your child's sight words.  Just make sure that as the student flips over the card, they read the word.  It is a fun way to practice your child's sight words without them really knowing you're practicing.

3. Sight Word Hangman: Using a word bank with the list of sight words you are working on, play hangman with a sight word.  This helps students pay attention to how many letters are in the word, what order the letters are in, and how the letters correspond to sounds.

4. Sight Word Shuffle: On a whiteboard or a notepad, give your child the word with the letters scrambled.  They have to unscramble the word, and then write the word themselves with the letters in the right order.

5. Sight Word Bingo:  Just like Bingo, but with sight words.  Contact us in The Learning Center if you want some blank copies of sight word bingo boards.  We would be happy to send some home!


Practicing sight words can be fun if you put it into a game-like experience.  This practice can help increase your student's decoding and fluency skills and improve their overall reading achievement.

Contact us with any questions.  As always, we are here to help!

Multiplication and Division Strategies

Many of our third and fourth graders are learning about the concepts of multiplication and division.  Multiplication is counting or adding in a quick way.  Multiplication involves counting in groups, rows or columns.  Division is when you split or separate a total amount into equal groups or rows.

The students have been learning the following strategies for multiplication.  As you can see, there are many different ways to multiply.  At this point in the year, students can use any of these strategies to solve problems. 

The students have also been learning similar strategies for division.  The biggest thing to remember about division is that we start with a total amount.  Many strategies overlap between the two operations. 

 

Your child may need to use objects or draw models to represent given multiplication and division number sentences.  That is perfectly fine as we are developing the concepts.  To challenge students who are developing the understanding, we are asking them to show us a problem in two different ways.

A Poem of the Week to Build Fluency

Many struggling readers feel discouraged when reading aloud because they have difficulty decoding the words.  However, oral reading is an essential component of building reading fluency.

Poems are the perfect tool to help your student become excited about reading aloud.  Poetry is filled with rhyme, rhythm and repetition, which helps a student build fluency naturally.  Students can sometimes anticipate the words that are coming next.  Implementing a poem of the week with your student is easy.  You may want to consider the following quick steps:

1. First, find a poem!  There are several poetry books available at John Paterson's library, as well as Lucy Robbins Welles Library.  Poems can also be found at the following websites:

http://www.poetryteachers.com/schoolpoems/schoolpoems.html

http://www.gigglepoetry.com/


2. Pick a time and place to read your poem.  If the poem is in a book, you may want to keep it on a nightstand to read before bed.  If it is a printed piece of paper, the refridgerator is a great place.  Creating this routine helps your student know what to expect.

3. Practice, practice, practice! Have the student read the poem aloud 2 or 3 times every day for a week.  You will notice that throughout the week, your student is not only reading the poem quicker, but that he or she is reading the words more accurately and with improved expression.  To make sure this happens, it helps to point out things that you want your child to work on the next day when reading it.  (For example, if your student reads all the words correctly, but isn't reading it with enthusiasm, you may want to tell them that tomorrow you are going to focus just on reading with expression.)

There are so many entertaining poems out there for children.  Find the right ones and your children will enjoy reading aloud and their oral reading will improve!

We hope this helps!  Let us know if you have any questions!

Series for Your Young Readers

One of the questions that is asked quite frequently is "What series or books do you recommend for my child?".   Students become better readers by reading frequently.  They become better readers when they read for the joy of it.  To accomplish this, it is important for students to get  hooked into books.

The following links may be helpful in guiding your child to picking engaging books.  Simply click on the link to find book series that most child love to jump into. 

Series for Boys:
http://voices.yahoo.com/great-book-series-elementary-boys-6118386.html
http://voices.yahoo.com/top-5-chapter-book-series-elementary-aged-boys-3094936.html?cat=25
http://voices.yahoo.com/books-boys-433196.html?cat=38

Series for Girls:
http://voices.yahoo.com/top-5-chapter-book-series-elementary-aged-girls-3107601.html?cat=4


We recommend that you help your child pick a just-right book for reading at home.  You can contact your child's case manager to obtain his/her independent reading level.  Next, visit the Lucy Welles Library and consult with the librarians.  They are extremely helpful and can identify which books or series would be just-right based on your child's independent reading level. 

It is okay for your child to read within one genre when you are trying to foster that love for reading.  Comic books, sports books, and magazines are all great resources.

We hope these links will help!  If you know of any series that your child already loves, please share in the comments section! 

Encouraging Everyday Reading

Reading on a regular basis is crucial to a child's success at school. Daily reading allows a student to naturally develop fluency and accuracy. Fluent readers use a steady pace and can read the majority of the words. Reading becomes faster, smoother, and more expressive. In many cases, understanding of the text is also increased.

Fluency can either be taught directly, like many of the approaches used at school, or indirectly. The indirect method involves encouraging children to read on their own time, voluntarily.

How do we get voluntary readers? Here are some helpful tips:

1. Make reading a habit in your home. Read regularly as a family. Let your child see you reading the paper, a book or a magazine and encourage them to get involved.


2. Speaking of magazines, many children's magazines are highly motivating and interesting.


3. Technology is often appealing to children. Consider using a program such as Raz-kids or find an appropriate online reading site.


4. Create a comfortable place in your home where reading takes place. Let your child help you identify where. Make sure it is well lit and allows for no interruptions.


5. Visit the town library and have your child share his/her interests with the librarian. Prior to the visit, you can ask your child's teacher what his/her independent reading level is and then share that information so the librarian can guide your child in the right direction.


6. Involve your child in everyday reading. Have him/her read recipes, simple directions, and lists. Create notebooks where memories are recorded and then read. Reading of signs, common logos and menus helps students understand the importance of reading.


7. Find a series that your child likes. Often times, one series can jump start a love for reading. Expose your child to many forms of media including appropriate comic books. Any genre can be the bridge to reading. 


If you have any tips to share, please post within the comments section! We would love to hear from you!

Welcome Aboard

We are super excited to be sharing this blog with you!  Home and school collaboration is key to success for students!  We hope to bring you important information about academic, social/emotional and language-based topics. 

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