Reading Curriculum

Now that we are into mid-October, we are in the full swing of our curriculum. Over the next few weeks, I will use this blog to explain our Kindergarten curriculum. This week I will focus on reading.

We use several curriculums combined to instruct our Kindergarten students in reading. First, we use a Reach Associates curriculum to provide students with meaningful opportunities to practice their skills in small groups. This time is called "workstations" in the class, and there are five workstations children rotate through. They are: Reading for Meaning, Writing, Word Making, Science/Art/Discovery and Math. The children are in heterogeneous groups and they visit one center each day and then rotate to a new center each day.

Within one center there are five different activities to complete. The children have been practicing moving through these activities on their own; their work during this time is independent.

Next, we use Reading Street by Scott-Foresman. This is a brand new curriculum for us and we are being trained continually on this all year. I am really impressed with this new curriculum and I have enjoyed the added reading resources. Reading Street is made up of six-week long units which center on one large unit question. Each week there is a read aloud story that assists us in learning more about our central question. Along with the read aloud story, there are little books for students to practice reading, poems and songs that match the story, etc. This weeks story is Dig, Dig, Digging and we are focusing on how machines help us in the community. See http://go-digital.scottforesman.com/readingstreet/list3.html for more information about each component of the curriculum.

Lastly, starting within a week or two, will be guided reading groups. Guided reading provides the children with the opportunity to work in a small group setting to learn reading strategies that will enable them to become independent readers. Guided reading is a process that builds and reinforces the three cue systems (semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic). The teacher "guides" the children to develop basic book handling skills, firm concepts of print, understanding of story structures, and effective reading strategies.These groups are comprised of a homogeneous grouping of students who have the same ability level with reading. We will be grouping across the Kindergarten wing this year, so each child will have a group that more closely matches their exact reading level. Groups will meet several times a week and focus on reading, fluency, and comprehension. Our goal is for every student to be reading by the end of Kindergarten. This occurs with lots of hard work, practice and team work.

Please remember to have your child read aloud to you 10 minutes a night! It really helps increase their reading ability as we move through the Kindergarten year!

Time Flies When You Are Having Fun!

I can't believe we have been in school six days already! The students are doing wonderful and are mastering the routines and procedures of full-day Kindergarten. We have been working on math skills, numeral writing, reading, learning to do Writer's Workshop, and much, much more!

One day last week we were exploring with our snap cubes (Unifix cubes) and a wonderful thing happened. Each table had one bucket of cubes and were instructed to "free explore" with the cubes. One table began snapping the entire bucket of cubes together and making one long train on their table. As the train became too long, the children used chair backs to support the train so it would not collapse. Quickly other tables began replicating the first tables actions. Everyone was interested to see each other's trains, but then two tables decided to snap their two long trains together. We rapidly ran out of room in the classroom and the children brainstormed solutions. After a few options were suggested by students, we decided to move to the hallway and snap them all together to see how long the train was.

I was astounded at how well the class worked as a group. The train was created as a team with no fighting and lots of sharing. It was a wonderful example of team work and cooperative learning.

Take a look at these photos showing great cooperative learning!

School is Coming-K picnic date

The beginning of the school year is sneaking up on me, and I am getting really excited. The kindergarten team at Ainsworth has a new and exciting look to it. We welcome back Srta. Vala and add Srta. Watkins to the Spanish Kindergarten team. I am extremely lucky to have Mrs. Kirkinen joining the Community Kindergarten team as well! We are all looking forward to seeing the smiling Kindergarten faces in September!

We are extending a special invitation to all Kindergaten students and their families to attend our Kindergarten Picnic at Ainsworth on August 27th at Noon. Please look around on the class website for additional details!