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• A very Happy New Year to all! May 2010 find you and your family happy and healthy.


• It was wonderful to see the children enjoy the game party. I especially liked watching them play board games together. Electronic games tend to foster isolated play whereas board games have the children interacting with each other. The children even commented that time passed by so quickly and they had fun.


• During January we will learn our final sound-spelling combinations. After all sounds are learned, we work on fluency and comprehension through repeated exposure to readings. Let's look at fluency for now. Fluency is the bridge between word identification and comprehension. Children have to become automatic at reading and spelling high frequency words.What is a high frequency word? In English, approximately 300 words make up 85% of the words in almost all the materials we read. Recognizing these high frequency words promotes fluent reading.We work on these words using flash cards. You can find lists of these words on the internet by searching 'high frequency words, wall words, or Dolch words'. As your child reads at home, common words that prove tricky can be copied onto index cards and posted on the refrigerator. Other at-home strategies are echo reading, partner reading and timed reading. In echo reading, your child echoes the page after you read it aloud. Partner reading can be accomplished by sitting left-to-right shoulder and taking turns reading. If you read into your child's right ear, that is considered the best technique. Timed reading is a fun way for your child to 'beat the clock' as he reads. Set the timer, read, then reread and try to beat the timer. A first grader should be able to read 60-90 words per minute to be considered a fluent reader.


• If you need a list of high frequency words, I can send you a copy. Ask your child about the high frequency words we go through with our flash cards and have them demonstrate what we do with the word 'move'. We DO have fun!

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