Reflections on Back-to-School

Thank you all for coming to our Back-to-School Night. Hopefully you received useful information to help you help your child be extra successful this year. It was nice to see everyone. I think we had a representative from every family except one.

Please note: what was said about Lexile measured texts may have been a bit misleading. To clarify, not every book a child reads will be measured with a Lexile score. There are different ways that books are leveled. So not everything your child reads or will be interested in reading will have a score. It may be sufficient to tell a local librarian (at least to begin with) what grade your child is in and whether or not they are currently a strong reader. Note that picture books are written at all reading levels,  including adult advanced levels. Make sure to check out fiction as well as non-fiction.

Additionally (and importantly), every book that you check out will not necessarily be on your child's reading level. You will check out books above their level where you will become the expert reader and track your reading with your finger as you read aloud. Some books will be at and below your child's level. Some books will be for pure enjoyment and simply read for the joy of hearing language out loud.

Feel free to be as creative as you like with the outside projects. The more important you make school, the more important it will become for your child. For example, one family took it upon themselves to build a globe for a Social Science project which is still in the classroom and used for instruction. Keep in mind some suggestions will be included from time to time in the daily message. It may not have been clear that if your child makes a speech to run for Class President, that will count for outside work. Another idea might be to learn a sentence  or short poem to share with the class in Standard American Sign Language. Feel free to make digital projects as well which we can transfer to your child's flash drive. For example, you could create a Glogster or Prezi account and work with your child to create a digital poster or presentation (This has the added benefit of teaching computer literacy as well as being free to make).

Not mentioned tonight:

• One way for your child to earn one star on the "Star Chart" is to have them bring a book to school checked out from an outside library (Carson Public Library).
• Information on Science and Social Science tests (as well as some other subjects) was not mentioned. Look for information on this site to be forthcoming.
• It was stated that 3 perfect math scores must be achieved for a score of 4 on the report card for each reporting period. What was not mentioned is that one of those 3 must be from the district periodic math assessment. One assessment is usually administered each reporting period.