National Reading Month at Defer

March is National Reading Month, and the Defer students and teachers have joined in the celebration!   Guest readers will visit many classrooms in March to share their favorite book.  Classrooms are silent each day as students curl up and read for sustained periods of time.   

Reading together at home is extremely important for all children.  You have the greatest influence on your child and you send a powerful message about not only the importance of reading, but the pleasure of reading when you read together.  Try the following suggestions to make reading with your child both a fun and a learning experience.

1.       Make reading a priority.  Whether it’s 20 minutes every night before bed or an hour every Sunday morning, it helps to set aside a specific time for reading. 

2.      Choose the right book using the “five-finger rule”.  When selecting a new book to read have your child open the book to any page in the middle and read that page.  Keep track of how many words they don’t know.  If the child gets to five words before they finish the page, the book is too hard.  If the child knows all of the words, the book is probably easy and is a good one to build reading fluency.  If they don’t know two or three words, the book is likely to be at a good level for their reading to grow.

3.      Create the right atmosphere.  Find a quiet place for your child to read.  Your home is a busy place, but children need a ‘reading spot’ away from noise and distractions.

4.      Make reading fun.  There are lots of great a book that are filled with humor and that’s always a ‘hook’ for children.  Try ‘hamming it up’ a bit when reading at home.  Play around with funny voices or acting out the scene you are reading. 

5.      Keep reading aloud to your child.  Don’t stop reading aloud to your child once he/she learns to read on their own. When you do the reading, you allow your child to enjoy books that are beyond their independent reading level.  Children learn new vocabulary, and it is a great chance for you to model reading smoothly and with expression.

6.      Introduce new books.  Sometimes one book will steal your child’s heart and that is all they want to read.  Remember, there are millions of books to enjoy.  Ask a librarian or your child’s teacher for a recommendation.  Check out children’s literature web sites. 

News at Defer

PBIS

Responsibility Pyramid

We have created a Responsibility Pyramid with expectations for each grade.  During the month of January teachers taught these expectations at every grade level focusing on what responsibility should look like for them.  

Beginning this month we will be adding purple cards to our class PBIS chart to reflect specifically on the grade-level expectations from the Responsibility Pyramid.   A student will receive a purple card for not showing responsible behaviors.  Listed below are the procedures around purple cards:

The maximum purple cards a student can earn in a day is one.

A student in grades 1^st – 5^th will miss the monthly Reward Party if they receive 8 or more purple cards.

Students will miss the monthly Reward Party is they receive 11 or more purple cards. 

Please review once again the pyramid with your child. 

Responsibility Pyramid

K – Personal Area Neat

1^st – Desk and Locker Organized

2^nd – Desk and Locker Organized, DOT

3^rd – Desk and Locker Neat, Planner Written, Homework Completed

4^th and 5^th – Desk and Locker Neat, Planner Written, Homework Completed, Switch Materials

The Defer Food Drive

The Hunger Games

Defer’s January 90^th birthday celebration focused on giving rather than receiving.  Our goal for the drive was to hope that 90 items at each grade level would be donated during January giving us a total of 540 food donations.  Thanks to your generosity we collected over 1,000 cans in the first week alone.  The Defer community is truly amazing!

The work of the Drive was done by our Student Council leaders.  Students in this organization unpacked bags, sorted donations into categories, and set up storage.  During the upcoming months they will be packing individual bags of food to share with families.  Under the direction of our Student Council sponsor, Mrs. Cross, and with additional help from Ms. Burrell and Mrs. Osborne these leaders were eager to have ownership of this project and they have done a fantastic job.  As our 7 Habits tell us – it was a win/win for everyone!

Parent/Teacher Conference tips

As a parent, you are your child’s first and most important teacher.  You and Defer School have something in common:  We both want your child to learn and do well.  When parents and teachers talk to each other, each person can share important information about your child’s talents and needs.  Each person can also learn something new about how to help your child.  Parent-teacher conferences are a great way to start talking to your child’s teacher.  This tip sheet suggests ways that you can make the most of the parent-teacher conferences so that everyone wins, especially your child.

What should you expect?

Ø  A two-way conversation.  Like all good conversations, parent/teacher/student conferences are best when both people talk and listen.  The conference is a time for you to learn about your child’s progress in school:  share your child’s data notebook and see information about grades, test scores, and homework completion.  Find out whether your child is meeting school expectations and academic standards.  This is also a time for the teacher to learn about what your child is like at home.  When you share with the teacher about your child’s skills, interests, needs, and dreams, the teacher can help your child more.

Ø  Emphasis on Learning.  Good parent/teacher/ student conferences focus on how well the child is doing in school.  They also talk about how the child can do even better.  To get ready for the conversation, look at your child’s homework, tests, and their data notebook before the conference.  Keep track of any questions you may have that you would like to ask the teacher.

Ø  Opportunities and challenges.  Just like you, teachers want your child to succeed.  You will probably hear positive feedback about your child’s progress and areas for improvement.  Be prepared by thinking about your child’s strengths and challenges beforehand.  Be ready to ask questions about ways you and the teacher can help your child with some of his or her challenges. 

Cited from:

Harvard Family Research Project

This year the Defer conferences are scheduled on the evening of November 12^th and all day November 13^th.  Most parents set up a scheduled conference time at Back to School Night.  If you have not set up an appointment, please let your child’s teacher know right away so that a time can be scheduled.  The goal of the Defer staff is that we have 100% attendance at our Fall Conferences. 

                                                                                                                

A New School Year

Welcome to the 2014 – 2015 school year!!! We are off to a great
start! The staff and I are eager to set our learning plan into motion.
Our mission is simple – Every Student learns Every Day. We believe
that, we plan for that, and we work hard to be sure it happens every
day.
So what’s going on right now at Defer?
• Last Thursday, Sept. 4th was our Back-to-School Night. It was a
great opportunity for parent to learn about their child’s learning
program, get a feel for the culture of Defer, and learn about our
parent organization, the Defer PTO. If you were unable to attend
please contact your child’s teacher. They’ll be glad to fill you in.
• This year the Defer staff will be implementing four aspects of
the Leader in Meprogram in all classrooms. Leader in Meis
a program based on Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective Adults. The four habits we are piloting include: learning the
7 Habits, reading the The 7 Habits of Happy Children book in
all classrooms, having students set goals and track their own
data toward that goal all year in a data binder, and finally set a
grade-level goal. These grade-level goals, called WIGS – Wildly
Important Goal,will be posted in the main hallway and progress toward those goals will be charted throughout the year.
Building relationships – Teachers are getting to know your child.
That’s really what’s going on right now at Defer. They are planning activities that help them get to know each child as an individual. One of our PBIS procedures in Morning Meet and Greet.
Your child’s teacher meets every student at their door each morning and engages them in a morning welcome. From a simple,
How are you today to What happened last night in your soccer game- The Defer staff is busy engaging students in conversation. The goal is to build a relationship, a relationship that is the
stepping stone for our students to learn, even when it is difficult,
because they know their teacher cares.
        Establishing routines – Part of being ready to learn means that you feel safe. Knowing what the routines are in classrooms builds that safe environment for learning. Where do I put completed homework? How do I fill my book bin and where do I keep it? What time is Gym and when day is Art?
What nights do I have math homework? Right now the Defer staff is teaching students the routines
of the school year.

March is National Reading Month!

Defer is celebrating again this year with One Book/One School. Our entire school and school community is enjoying a shared reading experience around the award winning book - The Cricket in Times Square. Each family received one copy of the book to read together at home each week in March. At school, we kicked off the experience with a school-wide assembly on Monday, March 3rd. During the month there will be a number of activities including trivia questions every Tuesday during morning announcements.
Reading to your child is an easy way to improve your child’ chances at school. Studies show that children who are read aloud to by an adult have a head start when it comes to language and literacy skills. And even more importantly, the bond between child and parent is strengthened with the pleasure of spending time and sharing the enjoyment of a good book.

Below is our reading schedule for this experience.
Happy Reading!
March 3 - March 7 Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4
March 10 – March 14 Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8
March 17 – March 21 Chapters 9, 10, 11, 12
March 24 – March 28 Chapters 13, 14, 15

Possible questions to discuss while reading at home:
1. What has happened in the story so far? Have students retell part of the story that you just read together.
2. What do you think might happen next?
3. How does the character feel right now? Why does he/she feel that way?
4. What problem(s) does the character face?

How do we help our students improve?

Each year, schools and districts review policies and practices to consider ways to improve and enhance student achievement. Defer Elementary School continually strives to be a better school on a daily basis. School Improvement is not a topic for the administrator, or a binder on a shelf – it is the way we do business at Defer. So what are we doing right now in the area of School Improvement? I thought you’d never ask!!! I’d like to share a specific action we are taking for School Improvement each month in my newsletter.
RtI
Response to Intervention ( RtI) is a multi-tier approach to the early identification and support of students for their learning needs. The RTI process begins with high-quality instruction and universal screening of all children in the general education classroom. Students struggling on a topic are provided with interventions at increasing levels of intensity to accelerate their rate of learning. Throughout the RTI process, student progress is monitored frequently to examine student achievement and gauge the effectiveness of the intervention. RtI is not a special education intervention, but is a part of general education.
So what does RtI look like at Defer? Three times a week, for a minimum of 20 minutes in each session, students are grouped for RtI work in their grade. The focus of learning is based on the data from instruction in the classroom. Let me share two on-going examples of RtI during the month of November with you.
In 2nd grade after six weeks of reading instruction, data was used to group students for RtI. During RtI time four teachers come together and work specifically with smaller groups on the reading skill areas needed. Two of the teachers are the Reading Specialists and they pull those students needing very intensive reading interventions. During that same time the two second grade teachers then regroup the remaining students into a decoding group and a comprehension group, based on the classroom data. At the end of six weeks of RtI, we will access students on the specific skills taught during the RtI session to evaluate and plan for the next RtI session.
In 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, their November RtI sessions are focused on Math. After teaching the entire math unit, they used the data from the math chapter test to group students for reteaching. During this RtI session, some students are in groups working on telling time because that is where they are struggling, while another group is doing enrichment work around factoring because the data reveals that they have mastered the basic understanding and would benefit from enrichment on the topic.
To put it simply, no longer does the student that did poorly on subtraction on the math test just move on to the next topic. They are given intensive interventions on that topic to help them master it.
So who is a part of our RtI teams? The answer is - everyone at Defer. For instance, Mrs. Raab and Mrs. Moses are a part of the 1st grade RtI team and it is scheduled in a way that they can work intensively with a small group or an individual student. For the month of November they are working on Fluency with 1st graders as a part of RtI. Kindergarten is including parents as a part of their team, and they are doing RtI at the end of the day when parents are available. Karen Labarge, Sheila Russo, and Stefan Harris, our Title 1 team, are a part of RtI teams at all grade levels. Clearly, we are in this together!
Will we make a difference, our assessments will tell us, and that information will keep driving where we go with each 6 week session of RtI this year.
Have questions? Ask!!! The staff and I are anxious to share and so excited about the work we are doing!

Summer tips to stay sharp

Ahhh! Summer. A time to relax and enjoy those lazy days filled with trips to the
park, family vacations and backyard barbecues, right? Not so fast! Summer can
entail more than just a change from the usual routine. For children, it can mean
a serious loss of learning. Research shows that many children experience a
‘summer slump’ and can lose about four weeks of growth from the previous
school year. However, there are many things a parent can do to keep their
child’s brain active. Here are a few ideas recommended by experts to help
prevent the dreaded ‘brain drain.’

Read between the lines. Have your child join the local library’s summer
reading program or start their own reading program or book club. They can set
a goal for reading so many books and even keep track on a book ‘growth’ chart.
Incorporate reading into everyday activities by pointing out billboards, fliers,
food containers and such. Younger children can play the alphabet game on
longer drives.

Talk the talk. Ask questions about anything and everything, but not the kind
of questions that only illicit “yes” or “no” answers. For instance, ask “What did
you like about…?” Get children talking, and you may be able to turn a normal
experience into a teaching moment.

Got Game? Organize game nights not just for your family, but in the
neighborhood. Play educational games like Scrabble, Uno crossword puzzles,
Sudoku or basic card games. They make for a fun night and reinforce skills such
as memory, concentration, logic and reasoning. They also teach children how to
take turns, and be both a good winner and a good loser.

Vacation your body, not your mind. Going on a trip can be a great time to
expand more than your physical horizons. Use the library and internet to learn
about the destination and its historical sites. Study maps and plot mileage.
It all adds up to fun. According to the National Summer Learning Association,
losing math skills is the biggest threat. Try a number of activities to reinforce
math skills. For instance, look at the measurements in a recipe you’re making
and ask your child to double it. Ask your child to compute the 15% tip on the
restaurant bill, or determine how many gallons of gas are needed to travel the
50 miles to grandma’s house. Make math a part of your everyday life.
Let’s stamp out summer slump when it comes to our Defer Dragons!!