Newsletter September 15-18, 2014

The Scholastic Reading Inventory assessment will be administered this Tuesday and Wednesday.  This test will give a baseline assessment of the student's reading and comprehension level (LEXILE) and will be used to tailor instruction.

What is a Lexile?
A lexile is a unit of measurement used when determining the difficulty of text and
the reading level of readers.
What is a Lexile range?
•It is the suggested range of Lexiles at which a reader should be reading.
•It is 50 above the Lexile, and 100 below the Lexile.
•Example
– Lexile is 820 (75% comprehension)
– Lexile range is 720-870

Guiding Question - What is a Complex Text?

Reading Focus- Asking Questions (Monitoring and Clarifying)

Selections: Lewis and Clark and Me (Historical Fiction), Ellen Ochoa:Space Pioneer (Biography)

Spelling Pattern- Long a and i sound

Conventions- Types of Sentences (Exclamatory, Imperative, Declarative, Interrogative)

Concept Vocabulary- Territories, Experiences, Fortune

Writer's Workshop: What is a Writer's Notebook, Immersion into the genre of personal narratives, students will be generating ideas for their own personal narratives that will be published at the end of Unit 1 based on the theme "A Moment I Will Never Forget"

Social Studies Focus- Five Themes of Geography (Place, Location, Movement, Human-Environment Interaction, Region)

Important Dates To Remember

September 16-17 :SRI administration

September 17: Fall Individual Picture Day

September 19: No school for students