MRS. COVERDALE'S GRADE 5 CLASSROOM
MY FAVOURITE READING QUOTES:
“Providing students with the opportunity to choose their own books to read empowers and encourages them. It strengthens their self-confidence, rewards their interests, and promotes a positive attitude toward reading by valuing the reader and giving him or her a level of control. Readers without power to make their own choices are unmotivated.”
“I want my students to learn what life readers know: reading is its own reward. Reading is a university course in life; it makes us smarter by increasing our vocabulary and background knowledge of countless topics. Reading allows us to travel to destinations that we will never experience outside of the pages of a book. Reading is a way to find friends who have the same problems we do and who can give advice on solving those problems. Through reading, we can witness all that is noble, beautiful, or horrifying about other human beings. From a book’s characters, we can learn how to conduct ourselves. And most of all, reading is a communal act that connects you to other readers, comrades who have traveled to the same remarkable places that you have and been changed by them, too. Rewarding reading with prizes cheapens it, and undermines students’ chance to appreciate the experience of reading for the possibilities that it brings to their life. For students who read a lot, these programs are neither an incentive, nor a challenge. Yes, my classes participate in the schoolwide incentive programs when they are offered; after all, they would blaze past the requirements anyway. But I never let my students lose sight of what the true prize is; an appreciation of reading will add more to their life than a hundred days at Six Flags ever could.” ― Donalyn Miller, The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child
HOMEWORK AND READING
READING LOG
This is a voluntary homework assignment. With that said, reading is proven to be the main way for students to improve in all areas of learning. The more they read the more skills they develop as learners. I have a wonderful library filled with books for all readers, and it's my hope that if your child doesn't love reading already, they soon will in our classroom!
In the back of the student's agenda, there is a reading log. I will let the students know that as they complete each page, accompanied by your signature, they can chose something out of the treasure chest. However, it's my desire that they want to just for the JOY of reading.
"Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift."
Kate DiCamillo
“Without spending increasingly longer periods of time reading, they won’t build endurance as readers, either. Students need time to read and time to be readers.”
Donalyn Miller, The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child
NEWSELA/ARTICLE REVIEWS
Beginning by the end of September, students will be given an "Article of the Week". They will need to read the article and give a summary as well as their thoughts and opinions on it. Each week they will be posted in Google Classroom/Homework and Reading. I will include a Doc for them to complete and a rubric will be included so you can see how they are doing. These articles will be part of their final grade in ELA.
MEMORY VERSES
We will have memory verses that will need to be practiced at home. These will be posted with the due dates in Google Classroom/Homework and Reading. There are times we will have a weekly verse and others when students will have up to two weeks to learn them. These verses will be part of their final grade in Christian Studies.
SPELLING CITY
When we begin our spelling units, I will have your child's spelling list up on spellingcity.com. They will be given a login and password that will be written in their agendas. Quizzes will mostly be done on Friday mornings.
MATH REVIEW SKILLS & BASIC FACTS
There will be times that I will send home Math review sheets, but this will not be a regular weekly happening. However, I will post some Math sites and send home sheets on basic facts for them to work on. While we do basic facts in class almost daily, these do need to be done with a quick review at home.