Frequently asked questions
General Inquiry
Who can ask questions?
Teachers, support staff and parents could all ask questions.
Reading
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.
Executive Functions and Behaviour
Online Learning
Response to Intervention (RtI)
In light of schools having moved online due to the coronavirus, what do we do about the spring 2020 benhmark?