Homework

Daily reading at home will be an important part of your child's first grade reading program. As you may know, every minute your child spends with a book brings him or her closer to becoming a fluent reader. Even children who haven't yet begun to read can gain reading skills simply by sitting down in a quiet location and looking through a book. Parents reading to, or along with, a child is even better and highly encouraged!

Let me explain how our reading log program works. Every day, your child will be selecting a book from our classroom library for reading at home. It will be your child's responsibility to read for about 10 - 15 minutes every evening and to carry the book back and forth to school each day in his/her book bag. Your child will be expected to take good care of this book. There may be a fine for severely damaged or lost books.

Your child will be keeping a reading log of all books read at home. This log will stay in your child's homework folder. Every night, after reading, students will write the date and the title of the book and have a parent or guardian initial it. (Parents may need to write the date and title at first and turn this responsibility over to the child as the year progresses.) Students will need to return their book and reading log to school the next morning. I understand that things come up and there may be an occasional night when your child is unable to do his/her homework. However, if your child repeatedly comes to school without a reading log initialed by you, he/she will lose a card for not giving 100%.

Over the school year, consistent daily reading will expose your child to various author's styles and will improve your child's fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing. Our main goal will be for your child to enjoy reading and to choose to read for pleasure.

The amount of written homework will be minimal, because I feel that it is more important that the children spend some time reading aloud to an adult every night. However, in addition to reading, the students will be expected to practice other subjects each night - spelling, sight words, and math facts. Homework should not take more than 30 - 40 minutes at the most. If it takes more time, please let me know. This may seem like a lot of homework compared to kindergarten, but, remember - the only way your child will show improvement is if he/she PRACTICES!

I do encourage you to be involved with your child's homework, but it is your child's responsibility to make sure it is finished correctly and returned to class the next day.