Our Class Vision guides us in our learning and community building goals.
Our Class Vision guides us in our learning and community building goals.
kelly.worland@dc.gov
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Grade 4 and 5 Room Parent:
Maria Salmi
msmia99@gmail.com
Check out this overview of 4th and 5th Grade ELA and Social Studies.
Lexile levels are a way that we determine your child’s reading level. I’ve attached an article below that explains how your child’s Lexile level is calculated. Embedded in the article is also a correlation chart that shows how your child’s Lexile level can be matched with the letter levels that you are familiar with thus far.
http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/book-selection-tips/lexile-levels-made-easy
Book Clubs are one way that we support your child’s reading growth and development. Children self-select texts based on interest. We then work together to develop strategies to tackle the complexities or challenges of that text.
In the younger grades, an emphasis is often placed on reading levels. The characteristics and skills needed to read at each level are more distinct at the lower levels. In contrast, after second grade the reading levels are banded together in groups that share the same qualitative measures of complexity. These measures include: 1. structure, 2. meaning, 3. language, and 4. knowledge demands. Sometimes children get stuck in one band because they cannot apply strategies to help them navigate the complexities of the next band of texts. To help us overcome this challenge I will be explicitly teaching the students what to look for in their texts. I will also work with them to set goals for themselves based on these text complexity bands. Take a look at the chart below to learn more or click on the link below it to access a printable version. If you cross-reference the demands of text by the Common Core grade level standards you’ll see a really nice alignment!
qualitative-characteristics-of-text-complexity-bands
We are learning different strategies to help us become stronger readers. Check out some of the strategies we have learned.
Check out what we are learning in our first unit, “Heroic Adventures.”
We read stories and biographies and analyzed them for attributes of a hero. We noticed that not all attributes apply to all heroes, but many apply to most.
Check out what we are learning in our first unit, “Know Your Rights!”
The students are reading the Articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We studied the history of human rights, and we discovered that catalysts to change our often wars, revolutions (e.g., Revolutionary War), changes in technology (e.g., Industrial Revolution), and economic disasters (e.g., the Great Depression). We hypothesized that climate change may lead to people creating additional laws and rules.
Listen to and read this inspiring poem on why we should continue to read with our kids.
Source: Writer’s Almanac
Poem: Reading to My Kids by Kevin Carey
Begin listening at minute marker 2:50. http://writersalmanac.org/episodes/20161017/