Week of 9/10
This week we are working on the Vocabulary 1 words available on my website (Elements of Fiction). Students will be discussing and reviewing the terms in class, and should be studying them at home. I have required them to make flash cards for each term, and I have also told them to “teach” parents the words in order to help them understand and remember them. We will have a test over these words towards the end of next week, after we have discussed them in relation to the stories we will be reading. I will post the dates when I know the students are ready.
Students have also begun this week reading in their Interactive Reader (IR): 6th “Eleven”; 7th “Thank You, M’am”; 8th “A Mother in Mannville”. They are to read these stories at home and come ready to discuss them. 8th grade students should be reading and marking the story using their text codes learned in English class. I am prone to give pop quizzes, so they should read for understanding and be prepared. We will be working on doing pages in the IR together in class, but they may need to finish some at home: 6th pages 10-11; 7th pages 23-25; 8th pages 34-35.
This week we are working on getting lexile levels for your child, and they will be bringing home printouts with their lexile score and suggested book titles for reading on their level. I encourage you to contact me regarding any questions you may have. We will be re-evaluating their lexiles every 6 weeks or so, and we will be looking for the scores to go steadily up. I will be contacting you for a conference to discuss intervention options if your child’s level is of concern, or if your child doesn’t make improvement and progress.
The cinquain projects look fabulous and I encourage you to come to Open House to check them out. I know your child will be anxious for you to see it hanging up. The projects hanging outside the classroom in the cluster are the “Wall of Fame” projects – they are especially creative and well-done.
Don’t forget that Reading logs are due every Friday, so students will be asking you to sign them. They should have read at least 100 pages by this Friday (10 pages per night for 2 weeks).
Next week: IR pages, story discussions, and Elements Test.
