Get Caught Reading!

Target Learning Goals: Each week, I will post, updating you on our "target learning goals" in our Readers' Workshops. Target learning goals are essentially our focused objectives; outlining specific reading skills or strategies.  Please note that these first few weeks of school, students are not expected to totally master some of these strategies.  The first few weeks are more about getting students to exhibit effective reading behaviors that they will use throughout the year.

MEZAN:  Students are learning strategies to help them think while they read.  While some of these strategies are not new to students, it's critical we reteach effective reading behaviors at the beginning of each year, as students are reading more complex texts.  These strategies will help keep students reading and finishing books that will make them stronger readers.

Target learning goals this week:

• I can use my schema to make meaningful predictions.
• I can use question stems (who, what, where, when, why, and how) to wonder while we read.
• I can read with empathy, making connections to characters.

O'NEILL & ROST: This week we're focusing on making connections: text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world.  Additionally, in making these connections, students are using their readers' notebooks and sticky notes to write about their reading.  There is a ton of research I could share with you about the benefits of writing about reading, but to keep this short, the big two are: 1). it improves comprehension and 2). fosters critical thinking.

Target learning goals this week:

• I can wonder while I read, asking questions to interact with text. 
• I can make text-to-self connections to read with empathy.
• I can make text-to-text connections to compare characters, plot, conflict, etc. 
• I can make text-to-world connections to consider themes and big ideas.

  "Get Caught Reading" is a nationwide campaign that launched in 1999.  The goal: to promote literacy and celebrate reading at home and in the community.  Please feel free to snap a photo when your child's reading.  Email them to me (Hadley.ONeill@hcps.org), and I'll print them here at school and post them in our room! I'll also display snapshots of (school-appropriate) celebrities, athletes, teachers, etc. who "get caught".

Upcoming Dates:

• Riverside Elementary School Clean Up:  Saturday, Oct. 1, 7AM - 12PM
• Race for Education: Friday, Oct. 28
• Reading Week: Monday, Oct. 31 - Friday, Nov. 4.
• Book Fair Projects: All entries need to be brought to school between Monday, Oct. 24 - Wednesday, Oct. 26.  Information regarding reading week and projects will come home this Friday at the latest.
• Parent-Teacher Conferences: Monday, Nov. 7 (information to follow at a later date)

Thank you,

Mrs. O'Neill