Reading

1. Reading In all elementary classrooms reading is taught in a workshop style format. Each lesson is taught in three parts; opening, work period and closing. Opening is a short 10-15 minute mini lesson where the teacher will present a concept or read aloud a book. Work period is 20-30 minutes. Students will be working independently and the teacher will be pulling small groups to work on specific skills. Closing is 10-15 minutes where the class comes back together as a group and discusses what they may have learned that day or clarifies any questions that student may have.

2. Kindergartners read every day! From the first week, the teacher models and practices three ways to “read” a book: read the pictures, read the words, or retell the story. This builds motivation and stamina for independent reading and gives direct instruction on isolated skills more relevance (e.g., print awareness, phonics). Students also hear models of fluent reading as the teacher reads aloud every day, including narrative and informational texts. This also allows students to develop comprehension skills before they are able to fluently decode texts. The end of the year expectation is that students will be able to read independently for 10 uninterrupted minutes.

3. Kindergarten students are assessed three times a year on their reading skills. Teachers administer the DRA2 at the beginning, middle and end of the year. This assessment along with other tasks (beginning sounds, rhyming, letter identification, sound knowledge, sight words) allow teachers to determine what skills a students needs to work on to move to the next reading level. • At the beginning of the year students should be able to: • identify 15 uppercase letters • identify 15 lowercase letters • produce 10 letter sounds • write their name using primarily lowercase letters • read a simple book with repeated text (Level A)