Reading at Home

Dear Parents:

The Home Reading Program has started! Your child will be coming home with a duotang that will be used for English and French Home Reading.

The Home Reading duotang consists of four sheets inside. The first sheet should be a letter explaining the importance of reading as often as possible. The second coloured sheet should state your child’s reading level and some prompts to assist him/her with reading. The third sheet is a clear plastic sheet where the students keep their English and their French Home Reading books. Lastly, the table at the back has four columns: Date, Title, Level, and if the book was easy, just right, or challenging. The students were instructed on how to fill out the chart (e.g., Oct 30, The Red Balloon, A, JR) and are to fill it out after they have read at home.

Your child will get a new book when they’ve returned their old book. The books can be returned every day, if you have plenty of time to practice reading, or they can be returned whenever you get a chance during the week. Please try and read at least one book per week if you can. The purpose of this program is to expose children to reading as often as possible, when at home.

The books will not be read with Ms. Haney or myself after they are read at home, unless there was lots of difficulty or some extra practice is needed. For in-class reading practice, students will be meeting with Ms. Haney and myself regularly for Guided Reading groups. For extra practice in English, they have been using Raz-Kids and will continue to do so. If your child has a different reading levelled book for Home Reading than they do on Raz-Kids, it’s because the Raz-Kids levels don’t match up exactly to all of the reading levels. These are your child’s independent reading levels, which means they should be able to read and understand the book without support. Although this is the case, we encourage being beside your child as they read, to assist wherever they may need it and to ask comprehension questions to check for understanding.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to ask.

Happy reading everyone!

Ms. Helou and Ms. Haney