¡SNAP! en Español ✳️✳️

Students enjoyed making their own set of Snap cards in Spanish class, playing in pairs and enthusiastically yelling out ¡Snap! when identifying the correct pair of classroom objects during their game.

THRASS chart raps

The school's new students attending the Thrass Catch Up lessons with me have been practising the Thrass Phoneme Raps at a slower pace to get accustomed to the various phonemes and their places on the chart.

Here are links to the Alphabet, Consonant and Vowel Phoneme Raps at a slower pace to rehearse at home.  Enjoy!

http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=SFdsWm0

http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=x1XqYQS

Darine Groch

BIG BREAKFAST

Music Literacy

Our Year One musicians are developing such an excellent grasp of beat and rhythm that they are already reading music....

Comprehension – The Key to the Reading Process

Comprehension is key to the reading process. If we are not gaining meaning from a text, there’s no point in reading it. Spend time discussing books with your child.

You can determine your child’s basic understanding of the text with simple questions such as, “What colour was the dog?”, “Where did mum and the boy go after the park?”

It is also important to delve deeper into the meaning of the text, such as “Why do you think the girl acted that way? What else could have been done to rescue the cat?”, “What did you like about the character?”

By discussing texts in this way you are creating a more meaningful reading experience for your child, which can only positively impact their reading experience. 

Los objetos de la clase 🗒📎✂️🖍🖌✏️🖊

Students this week have been learning a rap song in Spanish to support their learning of classroom objects in Spanish. Practise at home!

What do we need to know about the Thrass chart?

Over the next few weeks I am running a 'Thrass Catch-up Workshop' for students who are new to the school. 
Some points for parents to understand regarding the Thrass tool are:

English words are produced using 44 sounds.
The THRASSCHART has 44 boxes. The function of these boxes is to give a physical reference for each sound in English.

English is made up of two distinct groups of sounds.
The THRASSCHART has two distinct parts. One part groups the sounds that are the consonant phonemes of English, the other groups the sounds that are the vowel phonemes of English.

English words are written using letters, Capitals and Lower-Case. 
The Alphabet is placed at the top of the THRASSCHART showing both the Capitals and Lower-Case versions of each letter. Letters are used to represent sounds in written words. Learners need to be able to name and identify them. Alphabetic knowledge is important as this code is used as an indexing reference system in books, electronically etc.

Pictures can be named and described using words. We use words to write a story. 
The THRASSCHART has a picture (120) for each word on the chart. Learners learn to read by associating with a picture. Oral and written language skills can be developed by using the pictures on the chart for identification, classification and story telling.

WHY HAVE A THRASSCHART?
Sounds in English words can be represented with different letter combinations. 
Each of the 44 boxes on the chart contains the most common spelling choices for that sound. It also has a word for each spelling choice. The THRASSCHART allows the learner to quickly identify a group of letters as depicting an associated sound in a word. When we read we have to identify grapheme groups and associate them with a sound. The sounds are then blended together to make words. When we write we have to identify sounds we can hear and choose a spelling choice for that sound.

Sounds have common written patterns. 
Each word on the THRASSCHART contains only spelling choices that are on the chart. This analogous cross-reference allows the learner to start to visualise common spelling patterns thereby building an understanding of spelling. Each word on the THRASSCHART can be spelt using patterns from other chart words. e.g. bird is made up of bird, shirt, dog.

HOTWORDS

Yesterday students took home a copy of the Hotword assessments that we have done so far this year, in order to give you some indication of which level they are currently working towards. The words they read correctly are indicated by a tick, as well as any responses which were incorrect. These words were presented on a timed slide-show, where each word is presented for just over three seconds. 
Please encourage your children to work on their Hotwords for a short period of time each day. Learning these 'high frequency words' by sight greatly assists reading fluency and, in turn, comprehension. 
Copies of the Hotword lists can be found on the blog, at the top on a separate tab. Game ideas have been included, to offer some variety in the activities you could use. 

Growing and Changing

Today we were very lucky to have some special visitors join us in 1SB! Lachlan's mum, Emma, came with his sisters Lily and Juliet, to discuss how the girls have changed since they were babies. 
We looked at some photos and discussed the things that we could see had changed or developed over time. We also saw some of the clothes that Lily had worn when she was little. 
Emma shared how long each of her babies were when they were born and we then measured each of them to see how tall they are today. We worked out that Juliet had grown about 14cm in 4 months - no wonder babies need so much sleep! They're so busy growing. Lily had almost doubled her length since she was born. 
We were able to see the changes in things such as foot size and the number of teeth each child had. While Juliet has no teeth yet, Lily has 'baby' teeth and Lachlan has some of his 'adult' teeth already. 
Such great questions and lots of good thinking about how we change over time.
Thanks Emma, Lachlan, Lily and Juliet!

Library Lovers Month - Mystery Reads

We have been challenging students to try new books

and launched Library Lovers Month.

All students were given the opportunity to pick a Mystery Read from reading only the first sentence of a ‘hidden’ book

- no title, no cover picture, no author details ..... tricky!

Students got a Library Lovers Book Mark and were invited to write their name, the title of the book and tell us what they thought of their ‘mystery’ read.

Congratulations to everyone who took the challenge – very brave!  

  Keep Reading!

Premiers Reading Challenge 2018!

It is exciting to launch the Premier's Reading Challenge for 2018. The aims of the Challenge are to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in students, and to enable them to experience quality literature. It is not a competition but a challenge to each student to read, to read more and to read more widely.

If your child attended St Luke’s Grammar in 2017 they are already enrolled in the Challenge for 2018. Their existing PRC username and password are the same as last year and access is at PRC site: https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/home.html from Monday 5 March.

Mrs Duffy will send home a Personal Reading Record along with student log-in details on Monday or Tuesday this week and the students will then be able to access the PRC site and record books read.

By entering this challenge, your child is declaring that they have read the books entered in accordance with their school year rules.

 

K-2 students – can read the books on their own, read them with someone, or someone can read to them. If your child is reading simple chapter books they can attempt the 3-4 challenge – please let Mrs Duffy know if this is your child so that she can change the record?

3-6 students – must read the books on their own, but someone can help choosing them.

Book lists are found here: https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/booklist/home.html 

Complete rules are found here: https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/rules.html

The Learning Hub team has gathered a selection of PRC books for each stage that are now on display in the Hub. Students will need to visit your local library to access other interesting titles.

Don’t forget - we are launching the event with a Scholastic Book Fair and the cabinets are due to arrive in the morning of 6 March we will open for sales on Tuesday after school. Come along to the Learning Hub from 2.35 to find an exciting range of PRC and other book titles.   

Book Fair opening hours:

Tuesday 6 March from 2.35

Wednesday and Thursday 7 & 8 March from 8.00-830 and 2.35-3.00

Monday 12 March 8.00-8.30 and 2.35-3.00

             

The students have until the 31 August 2018 (11.59) to complete the Challenge.

Collaboration in Action

This week we have been growing our collaboration 'learning muscles', working together well on some tasks. Today  we completed a jigsaw puzzles - both as pictures and numbers. 

Home Reading – Developing Habits

Early reading years are very important in establishing positive and enjoyable reading habits. Please avoid focusing on your child’s level as the sole measure of improvement, but instead praise them for improvements and reading behaviours within a level:
“I loved listening to your reading so much – you put so much expression into the story!” 
“Wow, you looked carefully at that tricky word! It’s great to see you looking for sounds you know rather than guessing from the first letter.” 
“I really liked the way you paused for those full stops. It really helped me to understand what was going on.” 
“That was so fun discussing the book we just read together. I hadn’t thought about the character in that way. You picked up on some great details!” 
“That was great ‘river reading’. It was so nice and fluent”.

Little Learners @STLUKE'S

What Do We See In Sight Words?

Early in a child’s schooling parents will encounter a large group of words called Hotwords or sight words.  What are these words?  Why are there so many?  And why are they so important?

Keep reading and you’ll find an answer to these questions.

All languages have a group of common words which are constantly used. These words make up the framework of the language, which in turn, helps you to read the contextual words like jargon or topic-based words.

It’s amazing, but 50% of our written material is made of 100 of these most frequently used words.  They are considered ‘service’ words which hold ideas together.  These words have no picture attachment.  Learning these words by sight, automatically, helps readers to maintain speed and fluency.   Mastery of these 100 words contributes considerably to a student’s progress in Literacy. 

The next 100 words, together with the first 100, combine to make up approximately 2/3 of all words encountered in general reading.

Yes, that’s right, 200 words make up 2/3 of your reading!

Studies worldwide consistently highlight the link between a continuously increasing bank of automatic sight words and improved comprehension. So practise those words nightly with your children and help them on the road to being literate.