WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH RITCHIE'S RASCALS

     As we continue to settle into a routine, the weather outside is changing and there is much happening in kindergarten.  As you continue to read to your child at home, we are practicing various Book and Print Awareness concepts your child will need to know.  The first report card assessment will include your child knowing these concepts about reading readiness skills.  Below you will find the 20 concepts you will want to practice and review with your child at home when you are reading together:

  1.  Show me the front of the book

  2.  Show me the back of the book

  3.  Point to the title of the book

  4.  Show me where I begin reading on the first page

  5.  Show me the direction in which to read (left to right)

  6.  Where do I go at the end of a line

  7.  Show me one word and two words

  8.  What is the first letter in a particular word

  9.  What is the last letter in a particular word

10.  Show me one letter and two letters

11.  Point to the first word on the page

12.  Point to the last word on the page

13.  NAME any three letters on the page correctly

14.  Show me a capital letter

15. Show me a lowercase letter

16. Point to words one-to-one as an adult reads a page (voice-print matches)

17. What is this  ( . ) - calls it a period and knows what it is used for

18.  What is this ( ? ) - calls it a question mark and knows what it is used for

19. What is this ( ! ) - calls is an exclamamtion mark and knows what it is used for

20. What are these ( " ) - calls them quotation marks and knows what they are used for

Assessments,Progress Reports, Report Cards and More Information

Students have recently taken home their first progress reports. After viewing this progress report, if you have questions or concerns regarding your child's progress, please feel free to contact me and we can set up a day and time we can talk more fully about your child's progress. 

Parents are highly encouraged to purchase capital and lowercase flashcards to practice letter recignition with your child at home.   Please use these flashcards at home to practice letter naming and recognition and well as practice learning the sound for each individual letter.  You may want to have your child sort the flashcards by capital and lowercase.  You can also have your child randomly arrange the flashcards on the floor out of order and then have them find the capital and lowercase with match. Have them show you their matches to see if they know which capital letter goes with its lowercase letter.  For example, A goes with a, B goes with b, etc.  Please also practice the FUNdations sound letter sheets recently sent home to practice the recognition, keyword picture, and letter sound for the letters Tt, Bb, Ff, Mm, Nn, Cc, Aa, Ii, Rr, Oo, and Gg.  These will be the letters your child will be assessed on for the first nine weeks report card.  Please also practice writing these letters at home.  You may want to refer to the letter writing directions found in your child's STAR book.   

Parents may also want to purchase number flashcards to practice at home.   The flashcards may show the number and a quantity of objects to match the number.  You can use pennies, buttons, dried beans, etc to place on each object to help your child see what is known as one-to-one corrrespondence. For the first nine weeks report card, your child will be asked to identify, write, and show quantities for the numbers 0 - 5.

During the school year, your child will be assessed each nine weeks to see what they have learned each quarter.  I will spend time with your child on an individual basis to each nine weeks to check their BPA (Book and Print Awareness), DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment), capital and lowercase recognition, letter sounds, and letter writing, math skills, how high your child can count in sequential order, as well as other skills.  When I receive the current 2011-2012 kindergarten report card, I will send home a blank copy for parents to keep and view so you will know what your child will be expected to review and learn.

Getting Ready to Read

Students should be able to name or recognize all capital and lowercase letters in order and out of order. To help your child, parents may want to purchase alphabet flashcards to practice and review these skills at home.  Your child may know what a letter is one day and the next day, they forget.  Parents will need to practice to make sure students don't forget.  A simple place to start is in learning to recognize the letters in your child's name.  Your child has started bringing home "take home readers" to practice reading as they point to the words(text).  Please be sure to read it each night and write it down on the paper before returning it to school the next school day.

Mathematics and More

Students need to practice counting in sequential order.  This means, your child needs to practice counting at least three nights a week.  Listen to your child count starting with number 1 and see how high he/she can count in sequential order without skipping any numbers.  You may want to count objects such as dried beans, pennies, buttons, etc. to see how high he/she may count.  You can practice counting with your child to increase their counting skills. 

You may also want to purchase number flashcards to help your child learn how to recognize and name the numbers they see and their quantities.  Start first with the numbers 0 - 5 and then continue onto the numbers 0 - 10.