Dear Parents,
It is our intention that every fourth grade child read 1,000,000 words this school year. For fourth graders, this equates to 25 chapter books per school year. Students will easily reach this goal by reading daily, both in class and at home (at least 20 minutes nightly).
The books your student reads MUST be within their independent reading range, better known as "just right" books. By this age, we no longer limit students to a specific, alphabet-coded reading level, such as "D" or "K". Instead, we teach readers various strategies they can use to see if it is a good fit for them before they commit to reading the whole things. These strategies are much like the strategies adult readers use as they're browsing the aisles of a bookstore or library.
(Stay tuned for more about these strategies coming soon.)
Additionally, your child must read from a variety of authors and various genres. In an effort to encourage
readers to broaden their reading and reinforce the instruction and practice of the classroom, we have
developed a system of reading expectations. These expectations will vary slightly over the course of the year
as our instructional focus changes and readers mature.
You can expect to receive a paper copy of the
reading expectations each grading period, detailing the specific types of books required for each quarter, as well as student options for responding to their reading.
For the first quarter, students are expected to read:
1 chapter book from a book series that is new to them
1 Newbery Award winning chapter book
1 Sunshine State Young Readers Award (winner or nominee, from current or past years)
3 free choice chapter books
On your child's copy of the reading expectations, you'll see that they are required to respond to each of these books. However, response formats will vary greatly. Each child is required to meet with the teacher at least once to discuss one of the books they've read, and they are required to talk about at least one of the books they've read to their classmates in the form of a "Book Talk".
(More information about this to come, too.)
For the remaining four books, though, readers can choose from any of the 16 response options on the choice menu on the back. As we progress through these first few weeks, we will discuss responding options in greater detail to all the students.
Finally, keep an eye on the calendar and on your child's planners to look for "Pacing Checks". Because the responses are not technically DUE until October 24th, we've plotted out checkpoints along the way to help your reader stay on pace to meet their reading goals for the quarter. After each Pacing Check date passes, we will update your child's response completion status in Oncourse (accessible via the
Online Grade Portal).
Routinely monitoring this is an easy way for you to support your child in this long-term assignment, as well as their overall academics.
It is our goal that your child builds their lives as a reader, both in and out of school, while also reinforcing the thinking strategies we are teaching and practice of the reading workshop throughout the year. As we discussed with the students in class, reading is the pathway to academic and lifelong success. If we learn to read
well, we can read to learn
anything.
As always, please feel free to contact Miss Barron and Mrs. Nash with questions as more details roll out soon, and thank you for helping your child grow this year as readers!
