Ms. Hartshorn’s Classroom News

Dear Families,

It was wonderful to be back with your children after the holiday break! Your children were so excited to be back together with each other, catching up on vacation news, and getting back into the block building, puppet play, and general conversation the first thing last Wednesday morning. We seem to all be doing well with our daily routine, and have added some new events to our weeks—cross-country skiing/snowshoeing on Friday afternoons, cursive writing for second graders, and science experiments with liquids and solids.

Science ~ We’ve begun a chemistry science unit exploring the properties or states of matter. More specifically, we’re looking at the characteristics of liquids and solids, how heat can create change with these characteristics. We have begun to define liquids and solids, and the differences between them. We’re learning how to observe and record only what we observe, make predictions, create fair tests and then record the actual results. We’ve been using several simple science materials, such as eye droppers made from straws, wax paper, and household liquids (non-toxic). We are creating several experiments to help answer the following questions: What shape is a drop of water? What shape is a drop of oil? Can a drop float on top of another drop? Can you drag a drop around on your wax paper? What happens when we put several different liquids outside when it’s 32 F. or colder? Does salt water and plain water freeze at the same temperature, or in the same amount of time? How long does it take for some liquids that turned to solids melt or thaw back into a liquid? I’ll send photos of our science work in another email.

Reading Fluency~ In "Practice Makes Fluent," an article by Michael Childs, fluency is described as "one of the subtle steps in a child’s development that is crucial to learning science and social studies in later grades." Steven Stahl, a professor of reading education at the University of Georgia states the following: "Fluency has long been a neglected area of reading research. Children, typically develop fluency in reading in second or third grade. By the fourth grade, children are expected to learn independently from text, and the curriculum begins to shift from information that is generally known to children to information that is new." Stahl’s research for how to develop reading fluency has provided evidence to support a simple thought—"consistent and frequent reading practice, even for 15 to 20 minutes each day, helps children become fluent readers." Reading, discussing, rereading and summarizing the same story or piece of information text, not only increases a child’s fluency, but helps a child progress in reading comprehension—essential for the success in later grades when new information is expected to be read and understood in a more independent manner.

So where am I going with all of this? You will notice that your second grader has brought home today—Thursday, a reading weekly reading chart. This chart will be due every Thursday, when a new one will be sent home. I am expecting your child to read a variety of books or magazines (fiction/non-fiction), at his or her grade level, with reading time at least 20 minutes a day. Reading can be done quietly to oneself, aloud to another, or shared reading with a parent, taking turns reading pages. I ask that the chart is signed by a parent, so that there is guidance regarding the child’s choice of books—reading Dr. Suess’ Green Eggs and Ham five days in a row, would not be considered appropriate grade level material. Reading this once to a younger sibling or cousin is fine. Rereading pages or chapters of a book or a magazine article is fine, and actually promotes comprehension and fluency. Having a parent and child take turns reading a magazine article or book is also fine, and the discussion time that might occur summarizing the book, predicting aloud together what might happen, discussing events in the story, can all be counted in the 20 minutes of daily reading time.

Theres’s more---I am also sending home a Reading Comprehension sheet that your child should complete each week, which can be turned in on Thursday, Friday or the following Monday of each week. I think the sheet is pretty clear with directions, but if you have any questions, email me at bhart@madriver.com or call me at 496-3742, ext. 122.

Parents of first grade readers—your children already have quite a bit of reading homework with the little reading paper books that travel home two or three times a week for home practice with you, so the reading charts and reading comprehension sheet do not apply to your children at this time. Your children have been practicing the consonant sounds for /l/ as in lion, /y/ as in yak, /w/as in went and /wh/ as in whale. They’ve also been introduced to the short vowel sound for /e/ as in hen and the spelling pattern /ea/ as in head and bread, which also have the short /e/ sound.