Parent Info & Reading Strategies

This page provides parents and families with information helpful in our collaboration to best foster your child's educational development.

As always, please feel free to email me with any questions or concerns: calexandridis@haddonfield.k12.nj.us

• Common Sense Media: Contains book recommendations/book lists, including some for families. The website also offers a section called "Parent Concerns" with information regarding social media, technology usage, and other aspects of the digital world. Within the site you are also able to search book/movie/app titles to learn about the age recommendations and highlighted content to get a feel for exactly what your children are reading about/interacting with.

• Understood: Provides information (particularly via the "Parent Toolkit") that may be beneficial when supporting students with attentional or learning issues, from an educational standpoint.

• Everyday Math Computation: Provides assistance with Everyday Math computation and algorithms, which may differ from strategies students have learned previously (or strategies we learned in school!)

• Khan Academy: Offers a variety of instructional videos, as well as some practice exercises.

• Virtual Manipulatives: Think of it as a personal Smartboard with math tools and templates to assist many types of problem solving and math practice. This site is definitely worth exploring!

• Our Story: Our Story is an app created by We Need Diverse Books to help adults and children find books with more diverse characters and issues. The most basic version of the app is free.

• Libby: This is one of my most-recommended apps! With any library card, you are able to register and access a selection of thousands of ebooks--many of which are also audiobooks! Listening to audiobooks is a great way to change-up a reading experience, or even to assist with the fluency of higher-level texts. Pairing the audiobooks with the text (on-screen or in-hand) is also a helpful strategy for readers.  Libby is a quick and convenient alternative to visiting a library!

• Please check out some of the links on the Reading Resources page for some more sources available to support your students! It may also be helpful to view our Homeroom Info. Additional links, resources, and strategies are below to help you!

All fifth graders should be reading for at least 30 minutes every night. Even if it is not written down as homework in a student's planner, all students are expected to read for at least 30 minutes each day outside of school.

• At times, reading and/or assignments will be required in preparation for Book Club meetings, although some class time will be allotted for this as well.

While reading at home, students are encouraged to read in various genres and through various mediums. Some ideas are listed below:

• magazines

• novels, including their independent reading books from school

• newspapers (in print or online)

•  eBooks/audiobooks, using a Kindle/Tablet, or going to the Library with friends or family

• reading aloud to a family member or pet

• reading along with a family member

• listening to a family member read

• reading a book independently while a family member reads the same book independently in the same increments

• poetry

• plays

• graphic novels

• Remember, you can discuss what you read, whether it's something you're reading together or on your own, and whether it's a book you read at school or at home! Discuss your reading at dinner, in the car, or on your walk home from school.

Reading Quick Tips

• READ, READ, READ!

• Read the lyrics to songs as you are singing

• Set a goal to find a new word everyday and look up the meaning

• Read the same book with family/friends & have a book discussion

Vocabulary allows readers to visualize the text and make connections to what they're reading. 
It also creates a “word bank” in which to draw upon when reading.

Building Vocabulary

• Read with and to your child

• Go to parks, zoos and museums

• Read the same book and enjoy book discussions together
  
  

Comprehension is the ability to remember what has been read and gain a deeper understanding of the text.

Building Comprehension through Questioning

• Why did the characters make those choices?

• How do you think the character felt during the story?

• Retell the story from the perspective of another character in the story.
  
  

Building Comprehension Skills

• Reread if the text is not understood the first time

• Make connections to personal experiences

• Ask your child to retell what has been read

Fluency affects a reader’s comprehension.
A fluent reader can read a passage in a smooth and expressive manner.

Improving Fluency

• Children can read texts they find easy

• Read texts aloud to children and have children read aloud to you, too

• Rereading texts can build both fluency and confidence

• Practice using tongue twisters 

Hypothesizing and Predicting - After looking at the cover, the title, and the pictures, what do you think it is going to be about?

Summarizing - After each paragraph can you retell the most important information or main idea (without looking at the text)?

Visualizing - Are you making pictures in your head of what is going on right now in this passage

Using Prior Knowledge -  What connections can you make between the text and yourself, community, the world, or another text?

Monitoring One’s Own Comprehension - What do you think these unfamiliar words might mean? What are some ways you can get clues to their meaning?

Adjusting Comprehension - Do you want to change any of your original thinking or predictions as you read?