Home Reading

Home Reading finally went home yesterday.  This will be a weekly routine for the remainder of the year and here are a few things to keep in mind:

1) New packages (books and homework) will come home every Wednesday (ignore the fact that I sent the first package home on a Monday, we were excited to get started.  First "return day" is December 4th)
2) Please return packages (books and completed homework) on Tuesday/Wednesday.  I asked the students to not return it before then, as we are teaching kids to "over practice" with their books, and read them a couple times each day.  Obviously this is not the case in books that are greater in length, such as chapter books.
3) The homework assignment is to be done (drawn, coloured, written) each week.  Please help your child do this and encourage them to use all of the skills we are working on at school (drawing with details, colouring with at least 5 colours, proper letter formation, punctuation, spaces, capitals)
4) Students are picking their own books to bring home for their reading.  This is hard for me, as I like to "control" what they take home BUT more importantly is that they learn to find books that interest them AND fit them properly.  They need to learn how to recognize when a book is too hard OR too easy for them.  There are things to be learned from books that are easy, but they also need to know that in order to get better they need to challenge their brain.  We have discussed all of this in our classroom so I encourage you to talk to your child about the books they have chosen.  Are they too hard? Too easy? What is a new word they learned?
5) If your child has read, re-read, and over read their books, please feel free to pick other books to read for the remainder of the week.  My goal is for them to be reading a little bit each day, and I thank you for helping to support this goal.