Dear Parents, The school year has started and with the new year brings a new task. We wanted to tell you about our Accelerated Reader,(or AR)  program.All students need to read at least 5 books this term, or one book a month at our level. It should be a good fit book. Students have to read the book, take the test, and successfully pass the test for it to count. Last night we sent home an AR contract for parents to sign and return with the details.Good luck to all students and have a nice year reading!

Today students learned about my expectation for nightly reading. Students are expected to read from Monday to Thursday, 20 minutes per night, and at least once on the weekend. They may choose books from our class library, personal books, magazines, newspapers, manuals, fact books, recipe books, comics, you name it...or use the amazing Tumblebooks website. Did you know that research has found that the single best way to improve reading skill is to ... just read? ( How easy is that?) I will be giving students the passwords to log on to the Tumblebooks spot. It's fine with me if they choose to do their home reading using this site.  Note that I don't require that students create a log entry to chart their reading. Your signature in their agenda is enough to indicate that the reading was completed.   About Tumblebooks: Did you know that Tumblebooks provides an excellent way for students to hear stories told in an expressive oral style, coupled with visually tracking text as the story is read, and picture/ visual support on each page to link text ideas? That's a hat trick of reading power! Don't be concerned with the level of the text of the stories. 21st century research has found that easy reading ( a piece that a child can easily and quickly move through) can actually help increase reading fluency. So check out the site at home tonight with your child and enjoy the read!   Thanks   Mrs. Sully

    Just a heads-up to parents to let you know that we dedicate a set time every day in 5S to reviewing and copying down our homework in our agendas, so you should expect your child to have theirs written down consistently.  Our class Wikispace is also a place where your child will be able to go online and check the homework for the day. On our Wikispace page, I also provide copies of things like class notes, class presentations, and review sheets as they are created.  Please contact me if your child is struggling or if you have concerns about homework.