Information from Mrs. Jackson the Reading Teacher!!

Hello 2nd Grade Parents,

My name is Kristen Jackson. I have the tremendous pleasure this year of being your child's Reading teacher. Last week I tried to get a better feel for your child as a reader and writer.  This way, I can make sure to make sure that I am instructing your child at his/her level in Reading.  

Throughout the week, your children were all given a Spelling Assessment so that I could look at the Spelling patterns that each individual child was familiar with and those that he/she needed more support with.  In the next few weeks, students will be grouped into Word Work groups to help them to learn the Spelling patterns that they need.  Ideally, if I get the volunteers that I need, they will be working in small groups once a week on this "Spelling" Word Work. 

Some of your children were also given individual Reading Assessments by me.  With this new information as well as information from Mrs. Loop here at Oasis, I have been able to sort students into smaller groups and look forward to working with these small groups within the next two weeks. 

We also began our days with a Morning Message, using the names of students in our class to help us remember vowel patterns.  We will continue using these names to help us this week and we will also begin reviewing long and short vowels in multi-syllabic words. 

I read one book to our class each day, including one of my favorite books Me First, by Helen Lester.  Ask your second grader if they remember what happens to the pig who wants to always be first when he meets the Sand Witch. 

This week we will begin getting ready for our Daily Five routines.  Students will be learning different activities that they will be participating in while they are not working in a small Reading group with me.  This week we will work on Read to Self and Work on Writing.  We will also be remembering how  to Check for Understanding by asking ourselves, "Who" and "What" questions while we read.  Take the time this week during nightly reading to have your child stop and show you how to do this when they read.

Thank you so much for allowing me to teach your children.  I have so enjoyed them and am anxious to begin teaching them specific reading strategies in small groups.

Lastly, I would love to have your help during our Reading time.  WIth your help, I can closely monitor the progress of each child in the class.  I need at least 2 people to help work on Word Work with small groups of students as well as one volunteer to test and monitor student progress with Accuracy and another volunteer to test and monitor student progress with Fluency. 

VOLUNTEERS:

Needed:  4 volunteers

Once per Week

Time:  10:00-11:25 any day Monday-Thursday

Please let me know if you can help.  I would like to contact volunteers this week, so that they can begin working the first week of September. 

E-mail me at kjackson@oasisacademyfallon.us or text or call me at 503-569-8422 if you have this time open in your schedule and would like to help.

Homework:  Nightly 20 minutes of Reading.  (Shortly students will be bringing home assigned reading, but at this point, they can read any good fit book that they like.)

Thank you, I look forward to spending more time with your child this week!

Mrs. Jackson

Your child also began writing in his/her journal.  This week we wrote about what we liked most in 2nd grade.  We also created individual pages for our Second Grade Beginning of the Year book.