Friday 11/21

Tomorrow is both sports day AND bring your own devices day! :-)

***Stormalong Test Points***

Question #7 on the comprehension section of last week's test has been omitted. Each child's grade in Infinite Campus (parent portal) will be increased by 4 points.

Test Corrections HINTS

This list of question numbers/lessons was posted today during class. Students may reference it when doing corrections this weekend. :-)

Important Friday Info

Coming home today with your child are their graded first writing assignment (5 paragraph essay about their favorite place) as well as their chapter 2 math test. Some things to keep in mind:

Writing

• This piece was modeled from start to finish including an outline, first draft, editing, and revising
• Students were expected to write a 5 paragraph essay including an introduction, 3 body paragraphs, and a conclusion
• No teacher/student conference was held because it was a graded piece
• Students on grade level are still a "level 3". You will notice that two more spaces were added to the previous rubric (3- and 3+) because  so a level 3 in the past was such a wide range of actual scores.

Math

• We did start corrections in class and modeled how corrections for each question are to be completed
• It is the responsibility of the students to work through their corrections and they will not be accepted after Monday
• Math tests make up 90% of the math grade on the report card. The other 10% is a homework average given for each chapter based on the number of homework assignments.

**NEXT WEEK FOR JOURNEYS, WE WILL BE ON LESSON 5

Assessments tomorrow

This Friday's assessments include:

Spelling and reading Lesson 4

Math- chapter 2 (students should complete the review packet done in class as well as study concepts. extra practice can be found on pages 95-98 of the text book)

Journeys information

Along with returning your child’s reading test each week, I will be sending home examples of student work to reference for the R.A.C.E. question on that particular test. The examples demonstrate answers that have restated the question and have used two pieces of evidence from the text. You may reference these when reviewing possible answers to that question. It is important that students are using evidence from the text to support their answers and not simply using their own background knowledge.

Important information and tips for helping your child be successful on Friday’s assessment

·         There will always be 20 multiple choice questions (10 vocabulary, 10 comprehension from the anchor text that week)

·         The R.A.C.E. question (extended response) is usually based on the Essential Question given on the first page of the story and is essentially worth 20% of the total score (5/25)

·         Friday’s test is ALWAYS open book. I would never require a student to memorize every detail of a story. They can look back at the story, use the glossary, or any other part of the book that will help them answer questions.

·         Accessing the weekly anchor text AND vocabulary on ThinkCentral each week to prepare for the Friday assessment is HIGHLY ENCOURAGED.  If for any reason you are unable to have your child access the book online, please contact me and I would be happy to arrange to have them bring the text book home to study.

·         The lowest test score each quarter IS dropped.

·         I have been getting feedback from parents that their child’s scores in reading are much lower than last year and/or  their scores from last year in class did not correlate with their performance on the state common core assessments. It is important to know that with the adoption of our new reading series, also came the adoption of more rigorous weekly assessments that will better prepare students for the state exams. We will continue to work each week on strategies during our reading block.

Thank you, in advance, for your support at home.

Next week...

Due to the Columbus Day Holiday, our field trip to Brookside Museum, and our evacuation drill on Friday morning, we will not have a reading OR spelling test next week. We will resume with lesson 5 on 10/20.