Fluency

Sometimes parents wonder if it is okay for their child to re-read the same book/s.  As parents, we sometimes feel like this may be a waste of time because the child has already read the book in question, they already know what it is about and know exactly what is going to happen.

It is quite common for students to benefit from re-reading books, especially if they are working on becoming increasingly fluent readers.  It helps students remember facts and focus on higher levels of comprehension and understanding.

What is fluency? 
Fluency is how fluidly someone reads.  This includes speed, use of punctuation and ability to read with expression.  In order for a student (or adult) to read with fluency, they need to read at an independent reading level or slightly lower.  In other words, it is okay for your student to read an easier book. 

Concerned about fluency?
As a parent, you can model the reading of a paragraph or a few sentences, the way it is meant to sound and have your student try it with the same text.  It does not have to be speed reading, but purposeful and fluid.

How is fluency addressed in the classroom?
There are several strategies to increase fluency, including re-reading.  You may also see teachers instruct students through automaticity with sight words, phrasing, reader's theatre, choral reading, paired reading, reading while listening to text, teaching students to recognize the parts of difficult words that they already know (including teaching of and automaticity with prefixes and suffixes), and other methods as well. 

What is the expected rate of fluency for my student?
Fluency rates begin to increase in 2nd Grade and begins to take shape in 1st Grade.
Fall expectations:

Grade                                  Average #-words per minute                     Above Average#-words per minute
2nd                                        40-50                                                                          80
3rd                                        55-70                                                                          100
4th                                         75-95                                                                          120
5th                                         90-110                                                                        140

Teachers assess fluency while completing Reading Running Records with students at the beginning, middle and end of the school year in most grade levels. 

Enjoy watching your student read!

Helping Your Student Pick Just Right Books

Ever wonder what to do when your child chooses to read a book that is too difficult or too easy? Is it okay? How do I handle without being discouraging? Well, here is how teachers work with students to help them find a just right book.



Here are some ways you may hear the teachers at Roberts instruct when teaching students how to choose a just right book.

I PICK

P- Purpose (what is the reason you are reading?)
I- Interest (choose a book you are interested in)
C- Comprehension (be sure you can understand the text)
K- Know (do you know all the words- for a chapter book page, this means having less than 5 words on a page that you do not know. This means that the student does not have to sound out these words. For the younger students, this means knowing all the words)

The 5 Finger Rule

This is also used to describe "I PICK" or it is used to remind students that there should be 5 or fewer words on a full chapter book page that they do not know. "Knowing" in this stategy is being able to understand and read the words.

Book Room: Parent Corner

Dear Roberts community,

I am looking forward to being the new Reading Specialist at Roberts Elementary this school year. If you are wondering where I am located, I am in the small book room adjacent to the Center for Inquiry. In addition to maintaining the inventory of leveled readers for Teachers and Classrooms, I will be providing intervention for students who are in need of Tier III intervention as decided by the Intervention Assistance Team (IAT). I will be posting parent tips on how to help your readers at home. Here is the first tip:


Ever wonder what to do when your child gets "stuck" on a word while reading?

Do not provide the word right away.

First, ask the child, "What can you do to help yourself?"

If attempt is incorrect, ask...

"Does that make sense?"

"Does that sound right?"

"Does that look right?"

If your child does not attempt to read the word when "stuck", ask, "What's a word that would make sense in the story?"

It's important for your child to think about the meaning of the story/text while using the letter sounds they already know.

Keep reading,

Carol Rivers

Progress Reports, Survey and Carnival

Hello All, Progress Reports go home today along with graded work. Any grades of 75 or lower can be corrected and turned in. What I have noticed, is that many of the 5th Graders have "Senioritis" and are starting to take short cuts with their work and sometimes need reminders to continue to do their best and use the strategies needed to do their best. If you are concerned about your student's grade/s, please feel free to e-mail me. I have told students that these are Progress Reports and it is there to give students and parents time to progress and monitor progress. Carnival is May the 5th from 10 until 2:00. Our classroom booth is the Mechanical Bull and we will need parent volunteers to work at the booth. The times are from 9:00 until 3:00 with one hour shifts changing on the hour. We need two volunteers per shift so that everything runs smoothly. There is a sign up sheet on our classroom door and you are welcome to come in and sign up or you can e-mail me and I will write your name on the sign up (first come, first serve). Ashley Malone is our first volunteer and she will be working a 10:00-11:00 shift, thank you Ashley! Last, but not least, Mrs. Graves has the following message and survey link: Parent Survey Open Parents, its that time again! Tell us how we are doing. We want your feedback as we begin planning for the 2012-13 school year. This is your chance to be heard. Please complete the online survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/robertsparents no later than May 4th! Thank you for everything, Carol Rivers

Blog Updates for April 17th

Two STAAR Tests finished and one more to go. As we approach our Science STAAR Test on Thursday, the 26th of next week, we are preparing with additional Science Labs with Mrs. Savarese. We will go to Science Lab each day this week and cover the more difficult Science concepts for review. We continue to review in class as well. We Tested for water retention in different types of soil yesterday and today discuss inherited versus learned traits, including behaviors.

Thank you to all of you who were able to volunteer to chaperone our Arboretum field trip. As some of you know, if you were approved through VIPS last year, you still need to update to be current for this year. We will have a 5th grade field trip to Regal Ranch on May the 24th and some other 5th grade activities on campus. If you are at all interested in chaperoning, please check with the office to be sure you are current with your VIPS status.

Stanford testing will be the week of May the 7th and have testing each morning. You can keep this in mind when scheduling any needed appointments so that students do not miss any testing. We know that it is sometimes unavoidable.

REMINDER- 12:00 Dissmissal tomorrow and there will be no extended day

Social Studies/IB Unit of Inquiry-

We have finished up Urbanization and have moved on to World War I, The Great Depression and the Roaring Twenties. We will be covering mapping skills starting next week. This will help in our review for Stanford.

Reading-

Book Clubs continue with a focus on Reading Comprehension strategies and Literary Devices (alliteration, meaphor, paradox, imagery, personification, understatement, hyperbole, simile, foreshadowing, onomatopoeia and rhyme). Modeling and think alouds are done through our classroom read aloud.

Math-

We have covered all of the 5th Grade Curriculum for Math. We are currently covering and reviewing 5th Grade and beyond for Geometric figures. Extensions to 6th grade are covered in area and circumference of a circle and cylinders. We will be meeting for Math on Thursday only of this week, so student will probably not be coming home with Math homework this week.

Roberts Idol-

Students interested in auditioning for Roberts Idol have been signing up with Mrs. Audi at recess time and auditions will be held on May the 1st and May the 3rd after school. If your student has not let you know, they should know when their audition is.


Carnival will be Saturday, May the 5th from 10-2:00. Can't wait to see you there.

Ms. Rivers

75th Anniversary

Oran M. Roberts Elementary, first opening its schoolhouse doors in 1936, will celebrate 75 years of educating children on Saturday, March 31, 2012. The celebration will begin at 6:00 p.m. with a reception on the front lawn and school tours available for alumni and neighbors.


Visitors and neighbors are invited to stay for our free Spring Community Night at the outdoor stage, to include the 1930’s classic film, The Wizard of Oz. Nachos and popcorn will be provided, with dinner available for purchase by Lola catering. Bring lawn chairs or a blanket for your comfort.


Help us get the word out to neighbors and alumni! Find out more information on twitter @REworldschool, or friend us on facebook at Oran M. Roberts Elementary Alumni.

If you are a Roberts' alumnus, let us know about you at

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RE75th

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Blog Updates 2/13/12

Camp Read A Lot and Valentines Party Tomorrow!!!

Camp Read A Lot-

Students can come ready to be comfortable with a pillow, blanket and in comfortable clothes, even pajamas. We will be reading from about 9:45-11:25 and then from 1:20-2:00.

We will be having our Valentines Day Party from 2:00 until 2:45. If students are bringing cards, please have them bring for everyone in the class. They do not need to put any receiver's names, just who it is from. Thank you to Saba Kapadia for organizing the party for us!

Reading- Well, as you may have heard, we are on our 2nd book club book and will be continuing throughout the Spring Semester, attempting to get through a book about every week and a half. In addition, we continue to practice test taking strategies and practice with comprehension passages. I ask for students to find evidence for their answers in the text. Even some of the more proficient readers are not attending to the text. We are reviewing as a class and will be taking a STARR Benchmark test next week. We will analyze individual performances and address strengths and areas for improvement.

Language Arts-

We have just completed our IB Unit of Inquiry on the use of powerful words to influence others. The students did a great job dressing up and speaking as the Historical Figure in our Living Museum on Wednesday of last week. We will be posting photos and work samples on our 5th Grade IB bulletin board soon.

IB Unit of Inquiry-
Our next Unit of Inquiry will involve Social Studies and the 5th grade teachers are meeting all day on Wednesday of this week to plan and solidify this next unit.

Science-

We have begun Earth Science. The following concepts and vocabulary are being reviewed and learned: Rock Cycle, Earth's Layers, Tectonic Plates, Earth quakes, volcanoes, landforms, water cycle, erosion and weathering. We should be finishing up in one week or so and then moving onto Life Sciences. Life Sciences are an area of focus in 5th grade. More news to follow on this subject in the future.

Social Studies-

We have arrived at the Civil War and will spend about 2 weeks on the subject. We are also looking forward to continuing with the Industrial Revolution, urbanization and Immigration.

Math-

All the Math Classes are currently covering conversion of measurement within the same system, customary to customary and metric to metric. This is for length, Mass and capacity. Again, we will have a STARR Benchmark next week in math and analyze student performance by objective.

Field Trip in April to the Arboretum! Yes, we are going to the Houston Arboretum. It is a great trip and we will need 3 chaperones for our class. Any Volunteers? It is April the 11th. Please let me know if you are able to help out.

Until Next time,
Carol Rivers

Blog Updates for January 17, 2012

Hello to All,

Students are back from break and into the swing of things. We have started new areas of study in Science and Social Studies and we are moving on in Math. Reading clubs coming up next week as well.

Updates:

Math-

Students in Ms. Schilmoeller's, Mr. Shahriari's and Mrs. Audi's classes have been focusing on fractions (including decimals and percents)and data analysis through graphs and will be starting some prealgebraic skills with exponents, order of operations, positive and negative numbers. Ms. Rivers's class has been focusing on Division with some review of previously learned skills. We will be moving on with measurement and conversion of measurement later this week.

Science-

We have completed types of energy and we are now starting to learn about sources of energy. Heated feelings and debates have been discussed regarding fossil fuels and forms of alternative energy.

Social Studies-

As many of you may have heard from your children, we have just finished the formation of our U.S. Government, The Constitution and Bill of Rights. Fifth graders are definetely keyed into civil rights and issues relating to individual rights. I am enjoying their enthusiasm. We are starting Westward Expansion, including from the Native American perspective and will be watching some PBS videos on Tecumseh and The Trail of Tears. Basically, we are covering expansion and how technological inventions started changing the culture and way of life up until the Civil War.

Reading-

We will be starting reading clubs next week and students are choosing novels this week. I will update you more later in the week.

IB Unit of Inquiry-

I Have a Dream
Central Idea:
People use effective words to persuade others
An Inquiry Into:
• Influences impacting a speaker’s words
• The intended and/or perceived meaning of a speech
• Effective presentation skills

As part of our newest planner, we will celebrate with a living museum on February 8. Every student will come to school “in character” dressed as an important figure in U.S. history. As you select your choice, please keep in mind that this planner is a study of effective words, so it is critical that your person has a famous speech or quotations from which you can work.

By next Monday, January 23, please select your person. They need to be a historically significant American who is no longer living (please see suggestions on the reverse side of this paper). Please bring in a brief history of the era in which your person lived, a copy of their speech, and a picture of this person. We will NOT be doing detailed biography studies of this person; instead, we are trying to learn about what was happening in the world in which they lived and how their speech fit into this era and their objectives. For example, for MLK, we would need information related to the civil rights era, and his role in the issues of that time.

Remember, this information is needed by next Monday, January 23.