Who can ask questions?

Teachers, support staff and parents could all ask questions.

How do I encourage my students to read a whole book at home?

Create an Independent Reading Calendar. It's not easy to get started reading, especially when you are picking a book up for the first time and holding all those yet to be read pages in your hand. Breaking the seemingly impossible task into smaller more "bite-sized" chunks will not only help to get the job done, it also teaches some very important skills related to self-managment and study skills,specifically goal setting and time-managment. There are two options when creating the Independent Reading Calendar depending on the students reading goal. Goal 1: Just finish the book Goal 2: Finish the book by a specific time. Goal 1: Just finish the book Step 1: Count the number of chapters Step 2: Determine your daily reading goal. How mant chapters will you read a day? Step 3: Fill out a calendar with checkboxes and the chapter numbers on each day until the book is finished. Here's an example. Book: Judy Bloom's Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing Number of Chapters: 10 Daily Reading Goal: 1 Chapter a day Number of days until finished the book: 10 days Advanced Tip: Time the stduent reading 10 pages and calculate, on average, how long it takes to read 1 page. Before sitting down to read, determine how many pages are in the chapter and multiple that by the time it takes to read 1 page. This total will give an estimate of how long the student will spend reading. # of pages X minutes/pg = total time reading Goal 2: Finish the book by a specific time Step 1: Identify the date when the book has to be finished. Step 2: Calculate the number of days between the start and finish date. Step 3: Identify how many chapters are in the book. Step 4: Divide the number of chapters by the number of days to determine how many chapters the student will have to read each day to complete the book by the specific date. Step 5: Fill out a calendar with checkboxes and the chapter numbers on each day until the book is finished by the due date. Here's an example. Book: Judy Bloom's Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing Due date: April 10th - Today's date: April 3rd = 7 days Number of Chapters: 10 Daily Reading Goal: 10 chapters / 7 days = 1.43. Therefore, the student Number of chapters the student has to read each day: I would likely round up and set a goal of 2 chapters / day, which allows for some wiggle room. In both examples, it is important to discuss with the student what happens if a daily goal is not met. If the goal is 1 chapter a day and the student doesn't read it, then either student needs to read 2 chapters the next day to meet their goal or adjust the completing date by 1 extra day. Adjusting the date is not always possible, so it's important to try to reach the daily goal.

How do I use zoom?

New to Zoom Here is a great resource created for teachers by teachers on how to get started with zoom in the elementary classroom. https://www.weareteachers.com/zoom-for-teachers/ Protect Your Classes There are some precautions you will want to take to protect against "hijackers". Here is an article from PC magazine that provides ways you can prevent what is now being called Z oom-Bombing. https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-prevent-zoom-bombing Lessons Learned As many teachers have turned to zoom, feedback from parents, teachers and students have provided a wealth of do's and don'ts related to learning (or not learning) with zoom. Here is an article called "My Child’s School Zoom Meetings Are a Disaster What should the teacher do differently?" https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/04/zoom-teaching-tips.html

In light of schools having moved online due to the coronavirus, what do we do about the spring 2020 benhmark?