Falling into great reading!

I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend! I loved hearing all the children's stories this morning about all the great fall activities that they did this weekend: football games/practice, soccer games/practice, picking pumpkins, hayrides, corn mazes, and enjoying time with friends and family. Even though there was some rain this weekend, I took the opportunity to explore D.C., specifically Georgetown. I got some great cupcakes on Saturday, and Miss Hapach(first grade teacher) and I went kayaking on the Potomac river this Sunday. It was a lot of fun!

This month I really would like to take the opportunity to focus on our reading. We have been working really hard in the classroom to summarize and retell stories. You can help your students at home with this comprehension skill by ensuring that they are using important details when completing the summary portion of their Reading Log. Be sure that your child is including the key terms: first, next, then, last/finally. These terms help your child to retell the stories that they are reading in sequential order. It is very important that children know which events in the story come before others because it will help them further in the year when we begin working on cause and effect. I have been looking closely at these sections in their reading logs to see who needs additional aide to develop their summarizing skill, and who is on the right track to becoming an Eagle Scholar! You can practice this at home with your child by listening to them read, having them close their book after about 10 minutes of reading, and verbally describe to you what they just read. If you have any questions or need any additional clarification or resources to help your child I would be more than happy to help!