Back to School Night

1. Back to School Night Accommodated Language Arts Mrs. Todesco September 10, 2013

2. 4thGrade McGraw-Hill Reading WONDERWORKS Built on the Common Core State Standards • Provides a clear, consist understanding of student expectation across the grade levels • Establishes necessary higher learning skills for college • Designed to be relevant in “real world” situations, transforming excellent students into excellent employees in a more global market place

3. Parallel Intervention program to Reading Wonders • Interactive Worktext programs • Scaffolds lesson • Explicit instruction • Gives the student a guided, hands-on experience with the material • Allows for immediate teacher feedback before mistakes become hard to correct • Still uses complex text • Same content • Same vocabulary • Same weekly skills addressed • Same spelling patterns addressed

4. Supports Foundational Reading Skills to Fill in Recognized Gaps in Student Learning These skills are an important and reliable predictor of later reading ability. Addressing them early can have a tremendous affect on a child’s reading performance. • Phonological awareness • Phonemic awareness • Phonics • Fluency • word recognition

5. Reading and Writing with Wonders and Wonderworks • Literature Anthology • Focus on Close Reading • Application of comprehension skills • Leveled Readers • 50% Literary texts • 50% Informational texts • Daily Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, and Spelling activities • Writing • 6 Traits of Writing ( Ideas, Organization, Word Choice, Voice, Conventions, Sentence Fluency) • Grammar embedded into writing activities • Assessment • On-going, with daily, weekly and unit assessments to gauge student learning • Fluency assessments to track prosody (rate, intonation, rhythm, expression)

6. Serra Goes Digital • Students will be given login username and passwords for their Homeroom Teachers • Online access to textbook:http://connected.mcgraw-hill.com/connected/login.do • Student MAY be assigned digital assignments (My To Do List) in the student’s portal • E-books and Interactive Texts can be accessed through student portal • Apps • Grammar Wonderland – McGraw-Hill School Education • Word Wonderland – McGraw-Hill School Education

7. Reading Plus Online program that works on the following skills • Visual & Perceptual Skill Building (iBalance- 10 minutes) – this skill is essential for Silent Reading fluency • Scan • Flash • Silent Reading practice (See Reader – 15 minutes) • I-rate – Independent Reading Rate • G-rate - Guided Reading Rate • Complex texts – includes more informational texts • Comprehension Skills (10 questions for each passage) • Vocabulary (Read Around- 10 minutes) • 200 words at each grade level • Checks for Automaticity and Word Knowledge

8. Reading Plus, continued • login.readingplus.com - Site code: serracat • Aligned to Common Core State Standards • Goal is to reach 80% or above on EVERY comprehension selection. If a student does not reach this goal, lesson DOES NOT COUNT • Complete 4 Reading Plus assignments (4 iBalance, 4 SeeReader, 4 Read Around) EACH week - If students do NOT complete their 4 lessons in each program, they will be asked to makeup those lessons at 7:15 am in my classroom.

9. Accelerated Reader • Students will be given a personalized Accelerated Reader point goal per trimester based on their performance on the STAR Reading Test. • Fill out Student Reading Log • Quizzes are taken at school in the homeroom

10. Points in Accelerated Reader Log on to arbookfind.com. Type in the book title or author in Quick Search to find Book Level, Points and Quiz Number. Enter the information on the Student Reading Log and begin reading.

11. How Point Values of Books Are Determined in Accelerated Reader • In Accelerated Reader, point values of books are based on length(word count) and text difficulty (book level). Most picture books, such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, are half-point books. Most short chapter books are worth 5 to 10 points. Longer, complex novels are worth considerably more points —Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina has a point value of 69. • The formula used to determine Accelerated Reader point values is: • [(10 + Book Level) ÷ 10] x [Word Count ÷ 10,000] • The raw value is rounded to the nearest whole number (except for the bottom of the scale, where the minimum number rounded to is 0.5). • For example, Anna Karenina’s book level is 9.6 and the word count is 349,736. Thus the point value is calculated as • [(10 + 9.6) ÷ 10] x [349,736 ÷ 10,000] = [1.96] x [34.9736] = 68.548256, • which is rounded to 69 points.

12. Points Earned Are a Measure of Reading Practice • After a student takes a Reading Practice Quiz, he/she earns points based on the book’s point value and how well he/she did on the quiz. In this way, points are a measure of reading practice— a summary of quantity, quality, and difficulty. • Reading Practice Quizzes have 5, 10, or 20 questions, depending on the length of the book. The cutoff for earning points on a 5- or 10-question quiz is 60 percent correct. The cutoff for a 20-question quiz is 70 percent. • For example, a student who takes a 5-question quiz on a book worth 1 point will earn: • 1 point for 5 correct (100 percent) • 0.8 point for 4 correct (80 percent) • 0.6 point for 3 correct (60 percent) • 0 points for 2 correct or fewer • A student who reads a longer book at a higher book level and takes a 10-question quiz on a book worth 5 points will earn: • 5 points for 10 correct (100 percent) • 4.5 points for 9 correct (90 percent) • 4 points for 8 correct (80 percent) • 3.5 points for 7 correct (70 percent) • 3 points for 6 correct (60 percent) • 0 points for 5 correct or fewer

13. Contact Information • E-mail: jtodesco@serraschool.org • Website: www.serraschool.org • Students Tab • Scroll down to Teacher Webpages • Find my name