Six and seven year old children enter the first grade at many developmental levels. What they have in common is a need to be active in their learning! Our first grade teaching team is committed to developmentally appropriate practices. It also encourages a "team teaching" spirit as we work cooperatively and collaboratively with our parent community!
Language Arts Reading Workshop Research supports the notion that all children learn to read in different ways. Therefore, the first grade teachers use a balanced literacy program that provides numerous and varied opportunities for all children. Reading instruction is made as multilevel as possible to meet individual learning personalities so that each child learns to read at the highest possible level. Our program is literacy based with an emphasis on three cueing strategies: graphophonic, semantic, and syntactic. Pearson’s “Good Habits, Great Readers” is a language arts resource that supports our balanced literacy program. During reading workshop, students engage in the following:
Guided reading - Guided reading allows the teacher to read with small groups of students and teach children how to read all types of literature while providing as much instructional-level reading as possible. In small groups, students maintain motivation and confidence while learning pertinent skills such as comprehension strategies, developing background knowledge, fluency, vocabulary, and oral language.
Centers - Students' learning is differentiated during center activities. Students are given opportunities to visit different learning centers around the room, such as the writing center, poetry center, math center, computer center, making words center, and the listening center. Students complete mini activities that stretch their minds and link their learning to previously learned concepts and lessons.
Self-selected independent reading - Self-selected reading enables students to choose what they want to read on their own level from a variety of materials, including a wide range of topics and genres. Opportunities are provided for children to share and respond to what is read. While the students read independently, teachers work in small groups or one-on-one to assess and assist the learning process.
Teacher reads aloud - The teacher reads aloud all different types and levels of materials on a variety of topics. The teacher models fluency and intonation, and teaches mini lessons that foster reading comprehension and the understanding of story elements.
Shared reading - The teacher uses "big books" to invite students to join in reading the text. During a shared reading, the teacher and students read chorally and use the book to build phonemic and phonological awareness, discuss story elements, and develop appropriate reading strategies. Shared reading helps with fluency and motivates early readers.
Partner reading - Pairs of students select books they are interested in reading. While the children are reading together they learn the importance of supporting one another and coaching one another during reading.
Reading strategies - In first grade, students learn to develop numerous strategies to help them decode unknown text and become more fluent readers. The following strategies are helpful to use when a young reader comes to unknown text in a book:
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Think about what would make sense. Look at the picture. Reread the sentence. Crash into the unknown word and say the beginning sound. Say the word that you think makes sense, sounds right, and looks right. Read on!
It is extremely important to reinforce these reading strategies at home! In addition, parents must remember to help their child read for meaning and comprehension by discussing what is read. Making and confirming predictions before, during, and after a story, identifying and writing about story elements, discussing favorite parts, and retelling a story in sequential order fosters understanding, as well as a love for reading.
Writing Writing Workshop is an opportunity for children to see how reading, writing, and spelling experiences connect. It includes formal instruction in writing procedures, writing strategies, writing skills and qualities of good writing. The first grade writing block includes both self-selected writing, in which students choose their topics, and focused writing, in which students learn how to write particular forms and on particular topics. Emergent writers begin by learning to effectively tell stories, move on to telling stories through pictures, and then add words to their pictures. As the year progresses, teacher directed minilessons, shared writing, and interactive writing serve the purpose of modeling good writing skills and increasing the motivation and self confidence of our young writers. Students are taught to use process writing to improve their drafts. The goals during writing workshop are to have students view writing as a way of communicating with their audience, to develop fluent, detailed writing, to use proper grammar and mechanics in their own writing, to learn to read through writing, and to develop a love for writing. As students publish their edited pieces, they share them with classmates. Instruction in writing also take place in Collin’s Writing, which is a district wide initiative. As an approach to the teaching of writing, one goal of this program is to get children to write frequently in many content areas. Teachers ask the children to do “quick writes” to help them develop not only as writers, but to enhance their thinking. By developing their writing fluency in the lower elementary grades, children will become more comfortable with writing on a wide range of topics and for many purposes. Fluency and ease of writing are part of children’s overall language development.
Phonics and Spelling Phonics fosters the understanding and use of the alphabetic principle. Students learn that there is a predictable relationship between the sounds (phonemes) in the spoken language and the letters that represent those sounds in written language. Phonics instruction enables students to use sounds to decode and read words. Phonics is taught through a variety of mediums. The first grade teachers use big books, guided reading books, read-alouds, white boards, letter and word tiles, "Making Words" activities, and phonics workbooks in the classroom. Each of these learning tools promotes systematic, hands on learning in consonants, short and long vowels, blends, digraphs, vowel teams, and high frequency words. Children work toward conventionally spelling a list of high frequency words. Additionally, the developmental stages of spelling guide instruction in word study throughout the year. Word study includes practice in phonics, word families and spelling patterns. First graders begin structured spelling activities in early winter. Students receive a list to study each week and are tested on Fridays. Invented spelling, or stretching out the sounds that are heard in a word, is encouraged. The goals of our spelling program are to teach students how to read and spell high frequency words, decode and spell words using patterns from known words, and to have students automatically and fluently use phonics and spelling patterns while reading and writing. The first grade teachers also encourage using the students' first grade dictionaries and word wall lists that are kept in the students' writing folders.
Handwriting First grade students learn and practice correct letter formations using the Zaner-Bloser method.
Please continue for Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and web links!
Mathematics First grade math focuses on number sense and gaining an understanding of the basic operations of addition and subtraction. Students learn in a hands-on environment where manipulatives are utilized in order to learn how to build math problems physically. Research has shown that relationships between numbers are more easily understood through concrete exploration. In addition, real world experience and connections to every-day life are essential. In the classroom, students improve their number sense, gain automaticity in recalling their facts, and learn to become independent problem solvers by using many strategies (manipulatives, counting-on, counting-back, drawing a picture, acting out, and touch math) to solve problems. These strategies demonstrate to the students that math is important to learn, understand, and enjoy! Harcourt Math, the series currently in use, provides a wide variety of strategies and activities which allow differentiated instruction, so that all learners can experience success in mathematics. The following concepts are taught in first grade:
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Counting and writing numbers from 1 to 100 Counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's Addition facts to 20 Subtraction facts from 20 Graphing Patterns Place value (ones and tens) Money (penny, nickel, dime, quarter) Time (hour and half hour) Fractions (1/2, 1/3, 1/4) Geometry Liquid and solid measurement (inch, centimeter, cup, pint, quart, gallon) Problem solving
A great source for extending the first grade math program at home is Family Math (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail//0912511060/103-8650426-2611832?v=glance ), written by Jean Kerr Stenmark, Virginia Thompson, and Ruth Cossey. You may also visit http://www.eduplace.com for math activities.
Science Children have a high level of interest in the five major units of study! Developmentally, first graders learn best when given the opportunity to explore, experiment, observe, and record (using pictures and words). Using these methods, the students learn about force, the environment, habitats, matter and the sun, stars and Earth, through observation, discovery, and inquiry. Units of study include: the roles the structure of the earth, the environment, and the weather play in our everyday lives; the relationships among the earth, the sun, and the stars; how states of matter change from one form to another; how objects move in many different directions when force is applied; and how the earth and the environment play a crucial role in the basic needs of life. Research supports the idea that children learn best by “doing” science. To help meet the objectives in each unit of study, investigations are conducted which fall into four primary categories: “Balance and Motion,” “Changes,” “Pebbles, Sand, and Silt,” and “Sunshine and Shadows.” Each category and each investigation encourages the child to think about the world in which we live in a different way. Throughout the year, students are introduced to the work of scientists and inventors. They learn how inventions affect everyday life. The children investigate how objects work and learn to use different measuring tools to solve problems.
Social Studies The introductory theme in social studies is the community. The children learn about their roles in the classroom community, and expand their studies to include the school community, and the larger Chatham community. Mapping skills are introduced and expanded upon throughout the year to include the oceans and seven continents, and children learn about a variety of traditions and celebrations in the United States and around the world as they explore diverse cultures and places. A biography unit which includes famous Americans who helped to shape our country, such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Squanto, is part of each child’s course of study. Current events are highlighted and discussed; TIME FOR KIDS students.
( www.timeforkids.com/TFK ), an age appropriate magazine, is a resource used to engage
Website Links We Use Oceans Ocean Kids http://www.prekinders.com/ocean_kids.htm U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (for kids!) http://www.epa.gov/owow/oceans/kids.html
Geometry and Fractions Fractions and Shapes http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/Patterns/ Harcourt Shapes http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/buzz/buzz.html Kidport Math Games http://www.kidport.com/Grade1/Math/MathIndex.htm Tangram Challenge http://standards.nctm.org/document/eexamples/chap4/4.4/part2.htm
Measurement Measure It! http://www.funbrain.com/measure/index.html
Language Arts Junie B. Jones http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/junieb/ Magic Treehouse http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/magictreehouse/
First Grade Skills A GREAT interactive site with grade level-appropriate math and language arts activities!!! http://www.internet4classrooms.com/skills_1st.htm Math Games A collection of online math games for first graders. Parent help may be needed for reading directions the first time.
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Tower/1217/math1.html Reading A-Z This site requires a subscription fee for full access, but you can get a glimpse of the type of books we use for guided reading and print a sample book.
http://www.readinga-z.com/ Scholastic This book publisher who provides our book clubs and our school's book fair has a great website with educational game links and parent information.
http://www.scholastic.com/
