One Hundred Forty-Sixth Day

Notices of unsatisfactory performance went home today. If your child received one, please sign and return the lower portion.

Thank you to the parents who volunteered to help with the field trip on Thursday.

Eighty-Fifth Day

Today we reviewed the diphthong spellings of the last few days. We reviewed conjugations of short vowel verbs. We also talked thought of, identified, and used adjectives in sentences.

In math we made "organized lists" or subsets of larger sets to solve number riddles based on one or more clues. This is also our homework. That will leave one more lesson before having a test on this topic.

I forgot to mention that unsatisfactory notices went home yesterday. Please remember that these notices are required by the district to inform you that your child may be performing below standard in a particular subject (math or reading) at this point in the year. Please sign and return the bottom portion of the notice with your child. Conferences will be scheduled soon.

Sixty-First Day

Tying up many loose ends this week. Our second reading skills battery is complete but for a few make-ups. Generally speaking half of the class's fluency scores decreased as I had predicted and half improved. Those whose scores decreased did not have much buffer for a lower score and will likely be receiving unsatisfactory notices in the next notification cycle. The tests increase in difficulty each period and are administered every six weeks. The bottom line is some children just need to spend more time reading. Luckily, almost everyone passed the word reading and spelling portion of the test. Tomorrow I will send home certificates of accomplishment for those satisfying the 1st grade reading fluency goal. I will send home certificates each time we take the battery to those who pass and who have not yet received a certificate. As I stated at Back-to-School, those that are passing the test and making the district goal at this point in the year are likely not to slip below a rubric score of 3 for the year and likely not to the following years either. High score fluency was 130 WPM low score was 8 WPM.

We told time to the half hour today and will continue for homework. You should find your child's 1st quarter progress report in their folder as well as a schedule for Thursday's performance.

Notices of Unsatisfactory Performance

As I mentioned earlier, unsatisfactory notices will go home today. From my perspective it would be counter-productive to discuss the content of these notices with your child. First-grade students at this point should not really understand the implication of this communication from teacher to parent. As I mentioned at Back-to-School Night, these are sent to parents a specified number of days before report cards in order to let parents know of the possibility their child may receive a mark of less than a three in reading, writing, or math as indicated in the notice. I will speak in greater detail to parents during conferences in November regarding these notices and other issues of concern. Also keep in mind that full assessments have yet to be administered in reading and writing.