What we are learning by grade level:

First Grade:
 We will begin with strengthening our phonemic awareness skills like rhyming and segmenting words into sounds.  We will learn about short vowels and review tricky consonant sounds.  We will begin reading early readers using various strategies to figure out the words in the text.  We will have fun playing games and sharing stories!

Second Grade:
We begin with a review of first grade skills such as short vowels and digraphs.  Then we will move into long vowel patterns.  We will read texts with increasingly difficult spelling patterns and learn various strategies for word attack.   We will have fun playing games and sharing our thinking about books!

Third Grade:
We will review our short and long vowel patterns and tricky spelling rules.  We will learn how to write simple paragraphs and respond to text in both short and long answers.  We will explore various types of genres such as chapter books and articles and poems.  We will have fun playing games and sharing our thoughts about the texts we share!

Fourth & Fifth Grade:
We will learn about prefixes, suffixes and roots.We will learn to write an essay, starting with the basic paragraph form and working our way up to a classic five paragraph essay.  We will read a variety of texts and reflect deeply on their meaning and share our thinking boldly. We will learn study skills and explore meaningful ways to use the power of words to change the world (One year my fifth grade students wrote a book in order to raise money to save an endangered bird and last year my fifth graders participated in the National Geographic Geochallenge!)