September Star Students

Congratulations to Xavier for being named Room 11's Star Student!  And congratulations to Devon for being named the Music Star Student!  Great job to both students for being role models for our classroom and all Eastlawn students!

AIMSweb Benchmarking this Week

This Thursday and Friday, all Eastlawn students will be given the Beginning of the Year (BOY) reading and math assessments.  Most of these are done individually and are very quick.  First graders will be given one minute each to do 4 reading assessments and 4 math assessments.  The reading assessments are:
Letter Naming Fluency (LNF): upper case and lower case letters are presented on a paper in random order and the student must name as many as he can in one minute.

Letter Sound Fluency (LSF): same idea as LNF except all the letters are lower case and students must name the sound of the letter.

Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF): The assessor gives the student a word and the student must identify, or "chop," all the sounds in that word.  Student performs as many words in a minute as he can.

Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF): 2 and 3 letter "nonsense" words (ex: mib, kiv, et) are presented to student and he must read as many words in a minute as he can.  Students get points for each correct sound, so students do not necessarily have to blend the word together (he can just say sounds).

The math assessments are:

Oral Counting Measure (OCM): Students are given one minute to count as high as they can

Number Identification Measure (NIM): Similar to LNF, but with numbers 0-20.

Quantity Discrimination Measure (QDM): Students are shown boxes with 2 numbers (0-20) and are asked to identify the larger number.  They do as many as they can in one minute.

Missing Number Measure (MNM): Students are shown boxes with a series of 3 numbers, in which one is missing.  Students need to identify which number is missing.

There is another assessment that is given whole group.  This is called the M-COMP.  It is a written test of addition and subtraction facts.  Students are given 8 minutes to complete as many problems as they can.

We use these assessments as a quick screener to help us identify those students who might need additional help from our Reading Specialist, Title I aide, or Academic Interventionist, as well as students who might benefit from extra enrichment or other classroom interventions.

I will be able to go over your child's performance on these assessments with you when we meet for Parent-Teacher Conferences in a few weeks.
-Mrs. Willis

This Friday Afternoon

I just wanted to let everyone know that I will be out this Friday afternoon.
-Mrs. Willis

Reading Logs

I apologize I wasn't able to spend a lot of time going over the homework with students today but hopefully you read the note I sent home last Friday about the reading logs.  I think the log is pretty easy to understand but please let me know if you're confused about something.  Remember, the goal is to read at least 10 minutes (more than 10 would be wonderful!!) every night.  At-home reading is one of the best ways to improve your child's reading ability!
-Mrs. Willis

Corrections!

Well I guess this is what I get for completing my introduction letter before I got all of the latest information!  In the letter, I encouraged parents to maintain a $5.00 on their child's lunch card.  Now that all students in our district can eat breakfast and lunch for free, this no longer applies.  Do not worry about sending money in for your child's lunch, unless your child is buying an extra milk.  Extra milks still cost 35 cents. 
Also, I asked that if you send in birthday treats, to also send in napkins.  I did not realize that napkins were on the school supply list.  So do not worry about sending in additional napkins for birthday treats; trust me, we have plenty! ;)
I apologize for the errors and any confusion they may have caused!
-Mrs. Willis

Welcome to a New Year!

New year, new school, so new website!  I used to keep my class website on Weebly but I was disappointed with their lack of templates.  I've been using Blogger for my own personal blogs for a few years now so the transition was easy peasy.  This blog is mostly to keep my classroom families informed but I also plan on posting information for other teachers as well.  Feel free to check out my different pages and please keep in mind that this is a work in progress! =)
-Mrs. Willis