Reading At Home:

As your child begins to bring home books to read with you, it is important that you are aware of the language and strategies that we teach in the classroom so that you can support them with the text. Your reader is learning strategies to help them when they've come to a word they don't know (decoding). When you are reading with your child and they get to a word they are stuck on, try using these words/strategies below to help activate a tool. Reading should be fun; if your child is ever to the point of tears--the text is too difficult. We never want your child to reach that point of frustration. A little challenge is good, but too big of one can make your reader head for the door and never want to open a book again. That's not what we want! Please let us know if this is the case, our intention is to send home 'just right' text.

• Eye: Eagle Eye tells us to look at the pictures. As an adult reader it may kinda seem like cheating!! Wait, you're not reading, you're just looking at the picture! But to an emergent reader, looking at the pictures is important! It helps them make meaning of the text and even helps them decode a word. When you're child is stuck and you can see that the picture might give them a clue, simply say "try eagle eye, are there any clues in the picture?"
• Lips the Fish: Lips the Fish tells your reader to get ready to make the first sound of the first letter in the word they don't know. Sometimes that's all it takes!
• Stretchy Snake: Stretchy Snake tells your reader to say each sound in the word very slllooowwwwlllyyy. Practicing with simple CVC words (consonant, vowel, consonant--bed, cat, mom, dog, etc) is a great place to start. Some kiddos really enjoy cracking the code. Try putting some simple CVC words on a notecard and letting them practice sounding out each letter so that it stretches like a rubber band. The early reader books that are coming home are filled with these kind of words. It gives your child a chance to practice on a small scale and work their way up to the big league words :)
• Chunky Monkey: Chunky Monkey wants us to find chunks that we may already know so that we aren't having to sound out every.single.letter. When words in text get longer, looking for chunks ensures that we won't forget the other sounds we've already put together. For instance, the word 'star'. Your child is familiar with the -ar sound. They know it says 'r' in most words. Chunky Monkey encourages us to see that chunk and say that sound instead of sounding out the 'a' and the 'r' separately. We have also worked with the -at chunk and will continue to add more!

We are working to put together a Literacy Night for our kindergarten families. We think it would be fun to get parents in the classroom and talk about emergent reading behaviors and strategies so that you can better support your kiddo. We want it to be helpful, informative and fun--we promise we won't judge!! It would be a time that parents can also share ideas they've tried, how they've implemented reading at home, strategies they've seen that have worked/not worked, etc. We'll be sending out a survey soon to get some feedback on what you'd like this to look like or if you'd even be interested!

Wednesday 9/28 Update:

Parents, below is a link to a survey about Case/West Terrace Park. The Park Committee is gathering information from parents in order to move forward with a park initiative. Please take a few minutes to fill this out. Results are needed by October 10!

https://surveyplanet.com/57d5bf0f82024cac2d7ae9dd

Hello Kindergarten Families!

Thank you for stopping by on our website! We are excited to launch this website as a stream lined way to communicate with you all. We will be updating this weekly (or as close to that as possible :) )

Explore around and learn more about our schedule, your kindergarten teachers, and what we are doing in class.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns feel free to reach out to us at kindergarten@qualityhillacademy.org