Mrs Coleman Kilgallon's blog

We have begun a new reading series during our daily reading intervention time.  It is Reading Mastery Plus.  This is a comprehensive program that targets decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension.  It works with the concept that not only are the students learning to read, they are reading to learn.  I think that this will be a nice addition to our reading curriculum.

The first quarter certainly went by quickly!  Everyone is well adjusted to Rutledge Hall and learning so many new things.  This week in reading we worked on the monitoring and clarifying comprehension strategy.  The students had many questions as we read our text, and we developed ways to find answers to the questions.  
    I look forward to seeing all of you at conferences.

The third grade students are beginning to write their first essays.  They are off to a good start and are very excited about being "published".  Ask your child to see their writing pieces.  A good website that coincides with our writing program is:

www.greatsource.com/iwrite

This week we reviewed how to determine the main events of a story, and then we went a step further.  After reading a story about Helen Keller, the students were presented with a list of main events in the story.  They were instructed to put these events in the correct order in which they happened.  Next, they wrote a summary of the story including only important events.  This was difficult for some of the students.  We will continue to work on this skill.

We have been working on four reading strategies that make successful readers; clarifying, predicting, questioning, and summarizing.  Ask your child to explain these to you.  Also, when your child is reading for 30 minutes at night, you can have him practice some of these strategies.

Reading

*Reading independently

It is important for your child to be reading every night for at least 30 minutes.  Consistent practice with reading is the only way to improve skills.   

*Oral Read Aloud

It was great seeing so many parents at Curriculum Night.  Your children are off to a great start this year.  I know that the 2008-2009 school year is going to be a wonderful one.  We have a lot of fun and exciting learning ahead. NetTrekker is a great link that you may want to use this year as we begin our learning.

The skill we targeted this week was drawing conclusions. We read Shell-Flower, by Rhonda Rodriguez.  It was interesting to use information presented in the book to draw conclusions about how the different Native American characters felt about new settlers. The main character was a real person, so we read some research on her and took turns presenting it to the class. 

 

My reading class is reading a story about a girl who volunteers at a homeless shelter.  In preparation for the story, I asked two college students come to our classroom and talk about their volunteering experiences.  The class was so inspired by their presentation that we decided to volunteer weekly here at Rutledge Hall.  We are going to be spending our recess time on Wednesdays in the CIC classroom reading with the students and doing projects.  I am so proud of my students for giving up one recess a week to help others.  We start next week and are really looking forward to this experience.  I am so proud!

I hope everyone has a fun and relaxing Spring Break.  School resumes on Monday, March 31^st.  The third quarter ends on April 4^th.