2013-14 First Graders!

Welcome to First Grade!  We are off to a great start! I am enjoying getting to know all the kids and can tell it's going to be a wonderful group of children.  Thank you for sharing your precious children with me this year. I am looking forward to partnering with you.

Here is our class!

Bailey, Ashlynn, Aubanie

Bridger, Chloe, Brayden

Isaac, Elijah, Do'olo

Jacob, Kylee, Jaden

Reece, Owen D.

Ryleigh, Taylor, Tristan

Jacquelin, William

Owen L., Clayton

* Missing from photos: Aiden


We will be participating in The Daily 5 in first grade.  The 5 areas include Read to Self, Read to Someone, Work on Writing, Word Work, and Listen to Reading. For the first month or so of first grade, we will need to build our stamina after we learn about each area.

The first thing we learned was how to pick 'good-fit books'. We have a small poster in our room entitled "IPICK".

I (I choose a book)
P (Purpose: Why do you want to read it?)
I (Interest: Does it interest me?)
C (Comprehend: Am I understanding what I am reading?)
K (Know: Do you know most of the words?)

We spent 30+ minutes 'shopping' for books in our classroom library.  Each child has a book box to place 6 good-fit books and 1 challenging/interesting book or magazine in. (See below)

Many of the children will need help choosing good-fit books. We discussed how to open the book to a page in the middle and start to read it. If you count 5 words you do not know, it is not a good fit for you. First graders often tell me they can read it, but when we try it together, they realize it is too difficult for them. You can help out at home! Have your child look for a good-fit book from your home library. If it can be read fluently or with only a few minor mistakes and can be comprehended, it is a good fit! If the reading is choppy, words are unknown or your child reads the words incorrectly and there is little or no comprehension, it is too hard to read alone. Research shows that when children read good-fit books, they are more interested in reading and learn to read quicker and better and find the love of reading! Books that are not a good fit can be enjoyed if a parent or older sibling reads it aloud, which is great too! In fact, listening to a fluent, expressive reader helps children understand what we are working toward!

Once we learned how to pick out good-fit books, our next goal was to learn about the three ways to read a book. Did you know that you can not only read the words in books, but you can also read the pictures or retell a story you have read before? We practiced these ways using our book boxes and began to work on our stamina when reading to ourselves. Our goal is to be able to read for 25-30 minutes without stopping. So far we have only worked up to about 5 minutes, but the kids have been very excited about it. (See below)

Next week we will start the process of 'Read to Self'. The kids will work on their stamina and learn to read using pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, and read in many areas of the room. If we are ready, we will then learn about how to 'Read to Someone' as well. What an exciting time in first grade.

Thanks for taking the time to read about our first week of school! I will be updating our blog 1-3 times per week depending upon what is going on in our class. I usually also send out an email to parents when I update the blog as well.