As our teachers and students are building routines, relationships and a classroom culture together, we are learning so much about our students, their abilities and their interests. Just as we are building positive routines and experiences in our school, it is also important for families to develop positive experiences around reading and literacy at home. My goal is to provide information and ideas to help you build positive experiences around literacy with your child. Please check back here weekly to learn more.

Learning About Literacy Together

Last week we learned about Phonological Awareness, which is the umbrella term including all of the sounds in words, and the ability to manipulate them. Today, we will focus on one component of Phonological Awareness, called Phonemic Awareness.

Phonemic Awareness is the ability to understand and manipulate the sounds, or phonemes, in spoken words. Every word is made up of sounds, also called phonemes. The word cat has 3 individual phonemes: /c/ /a/ /t/. Because letters and letter combinations are designed to represent spoken phonemes, phonemic awareness is essential for reading and writing. Our students learn that a phoneme can be represented by one letter (the /d/ sound in dog is spelled with the letter d), or a group of letters (the long ī sound in night is spelled with the letters igh.) Helping children to listen for the sounds in spoken words can really help them as they learn to read, spell and write.

Some things you can do at home:

• Sound Isolation: Ask your child questions like, “what is the first sound you hear in the word kid” (/k/). “What is another word you can think of that starts with the sound /b/?” (banana).

• Sound Blending: You can play a game to blend sounds into whole words. You would say: /c/ /r/ /a/ /sh/ and your child says crash.

• Sound Segmenting: You can say, tell me all the sounds you hear in the word table. Your child responds /t/ /ā/ /b/ /l/. You can also ask them to count the number of sounds in words (happy has 4 sounds: /h/ /a/ /p/ /ē/).

• Sound Addition, Substitution or Deletion: say the word horse, add the sound /s/ to the end (horses), say the word porch take away the /ch/: (pour). Say snap, change /p/ to /g/ (snag).

These kinds of activities can be done in a very short amount of time (less than 3 minutes) and can have a huge impact on your child’s literacy development in the long run. Thank you for reading!

Hello students and families! Each week I will be sharing some reading tips and information about our Title I/LAP Reading Support Program at Twin City Elementary. We strive to nurture a culture of reading at our school, because we believe reading plays an integral role in our promise that “Every student in the Stanwood-Camano School District is empowered to learn in an inclusive setting and is prepared for the future of their choice.”

Right now we are assessing the needs of our students in reading and math. If your child qualifies for additional support, you will be notified before we begin serving them in reading through the Title I/LAP program. Our staff is highly trained in the Science of Reading and the brain research that informs how children learn to read. Over the next several weeks, I’ll be sharing information about the Science of Reading, along with tips for you to support your child’s reading at home. Let’s learn more about reading and literacy together!

Learning About Literacy Together

Phonological Awareness is the ability to notice the sound structure of spoken words, including awareness of syllables, beginning sounds, individual sounds in words, and the ability to manipulate sounds in words when prompted. Phonological Awareness difficulties represent the most common source of word-level reading difficulties.

Some things you can do at home:

Make learning about sounds fun on drives, as you and your child are reading, and as you are speaking with your child. Try these ideas!

• Listen for rhyming words in poetry, story books or nursery rhymes.

• Notice sounds in words as you say them: when driving, you can play a game to match the beginning (or ending) sound of given words: “I see a mountain, what do you see that begins with /m/?” (motorcycle, man, movie theater)

• Clap out the syllables in words, and count how many syllables you hear (picnic = pic-nic, 2 syllables)

• Ask what sound a word begins with (zoo = /z/, table = /t/).

• Say all of the sounds in words: truck = /t/ /r/ /u/ /k/

• Play I Spy: “I spy with my little eye something that ends with /er/” (flower).

• Add or delete sounds: (“say boat without the /b/ sound”: oat).

Welcome to the 2022-2023 school year, Tigers! I hope you have been reading and listening to many great books this summer. Sitting on a comfy chair and reading in the sunshine is one of my favorite summertime activities. I am so excited to see all of your smiling faces back at Twin City Elementary and I look forward to a great school year together!

As we begin each new school year, we measure our students’ knowledge and abilities in reading and math to help us understand them as learners, and to inform us about each child’s specific strengths and challenges. This information is also used to help us determine which students need additional support through our Title I & Learning Assistance Program for reading, and provides teachers with information they can use to target instruction for their students.

This month, our students will be tested using the aimswebPlus assessments for reading at Kindergarten through fifth grade, and for math at Kindergarten through 2nd grade. Our third through fifth grade students will also take the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) for reading and math. The aimswebPlus assessments are typically very brief, often 1-minute timed assessments, focused on a specific skill to determine how a child is performing compared with the typical performance of their grade-level peers across the nation. The MAP tests are taken on a computer, and the assessments adapt to the child’s performance, providing easier questions if the child is struggling and more challenging questions if the child is answering correctly. MAP assessments provide information of how a child is performing across a subject area.

We will assess our students again in winter and spring to determine how much progress they are making along the way. Scores will be shared with you by your child’s teacher and are available upon request.

Please ensure that your child is well-rested during testing times and remind them to just do their best!