For the Week of April 27th

Family Book Club - Wednesday, April 29th 6:30-8:00 p.m. at Prairieview

The family book club committee is looking forward to our annual Family Book Club meeting. We enjoy hearing students and parents discuss important issues brought up through the reading of fiction. This year's books were selected because there are a number of character values to discuss such as truthfulness, anger and friendship. If you have read either Shiloh or Granny Torrelli Makes Soup, please join us for a fun evening together.

Gym Shoe Rescue

We will continue our gym shoe rescue for one more week. Help the earth. Recycle! Bring in gym shoes you no longer need or want. Thanks for all of your help.

Reading and Writing Together

Did you know that you can improve your child's reading skills through writing? Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak, in their article in The Reading Teacher journal titled "Write Soon!" offer numerous tips to parents about ways they can incorporate writing their child's life. Here are some of their tips: 1. Lists - Encourage your child to make lists - for who to invite to the party, what to serve, chores, favorite meals for your reference or activities done that day for future reflection. 2. Notes - Find a fun place to stick a note where your child will find it, like under a pillow or in a lunchbox. Encourage your child to leave notes for you. Give your child a small spiral notebook to write notes to themselves about things that interest them or something they want to talk to you about or try in the future. 3. Journals or Diaries - Keeping a journal can be fun. In a dialogue journal the family members take turns writing and responding. This way the child has a chance to not only write, but will look forward to your response to his writing. This is a good place to ask questions. 4. Letters and E-Mails - What a great way to stay in touch with friends and loved ones while working on reading and writing at the same time. 5. Parodies - Rewriting new words to familiar songs can be fun for the whole family. They can be as silly as you want. Sing them together as you read the words and your child is practicing reading and he/she won't even know it. Remember that writing must be authentic. If it serves a purpose then it won't seem like an extra homework assignment. Don't be overly concerned about mechanics. If you write together, the child will begin to use the parent's writing as a model. Writing should be a part of the family routine. Make sure the necessary materials are readily available. Have fun!

For the Week of April 20th

Gym Shoe Rescue - All of this week and the next we will rescue our old or out-grown gym shoes from the landfill. Gym shoes will be collected, here at Prairieview, and given to SCARCE, an organization that is concerned about our environment. They will either send the shoes to Nike to be made into surface or other products, or they will actually be used by people who need them. Please have your child bring in any shoes that might otherwise find their way into your trash can. Thanks for helping our environment. Character Counts!

Family Book Club - Family Book Club is coming up Wednesday, April 29th. It is not to late to read one of the two book choices and participate with us. We would love to have you. It is an experience that many parents have appreciated because they have the opportunity of seeing their child discuss important issues with thoughtfulness and interest.

Small Groups - Reading focuses on 3 main areas during the 3rd to 5th grade years. Fluency, vocabulary and comprehension are the main areas of concentration. We focus on fluency by doing word studies, repeated readings, readers theater and poetry reading. We work on vocabulary both in the stories and poems we read and in our content courses. Comprehension strategies are taught systematically and thoroughly throughout the year. These include predicting, visualizing, connecting, summarizing, inferring and questioning.

For the Week of April 6th

Learning to infer well is very important to successful reading. Help your child practice making inferences by asking him/her questions about a book you are reading together. Inferences are conclusions the reader draws about his reading that the author does not state directly in the text. The reader uses clues that the author gives and his/her own background knowledge in order to make inferences. There are a number of types of inferences. For example, a reader can infer what emotion a character is feeling or expressing. He/She can infer what character qualities or traits characters possess. Where the story is located can be inferred. Characters occupations and actions can be inferred. The time period of the story can also be inferred. Ask you student questions like "What did the author mean by _________?" or "When do you think this story takes place?" You might ask, "How do you think that character is feeling right now?" or "What do you think that person does for a living?" Follow up these questions with questions about the clues your student used to decide his/her answers. There should be some obvious and some subtle clues that your student can point out that helped him/her make the inferences.