Information from Conferences

At conferences, parents will be receiving a lot of information about students in the form of Fall testing scores:

-Math Topics- Students bring home math homework almost daily to help them review and practice the skills learned in class.  They also review for a test.  Please make sure your child is doing their homework!!

- Basic Facts- Yes, we are still doing Rocket Math but basic facts NEED to be practiced at home!!  They are called "basic" facts for a reason. :)

-Social Studies/ Science- We are spending about 3 weeks on every unit.  Our new unit is Earth Materials and then Earth, Sun, and Moon. 

-Reading Theme Skills Test- This test is to check for basic 4th grade reading skills.  These skills are taught and/or reviewed in class, but can also be practiced at home.  If you would like some ideas/ suggestions on how you can help your child with reading at home, please ask!

-Homework completion- Lately, a lot of students have been forgetting their homework and/or not completing it.  I check for this daily.  Homework helps review concepts taught in class and prepare children for being better readers and writers.

-Spelling- We have a spelling list almost every week.  Spelling is a life skill.  Please make sure your child is studying their spelling words at home!!

-Dibels- We know that when a student reads, there are many important things to consider.  How fast a child reads is not the only thing to consider.  We are using a new Dibels test this year that not only scores words per minute (wpm) and accuracy (reading the words correctly), but also retell, retell quality, and using context to understand words.  These are ALL things students can be practicing at home in addition to working on them daily at school.

-MAP test- This test stands for Measure of Academic Progress.  We just began utilizing it last year, but are beginning now to use the data more in determing needs for our students.  It is 2 separate tests taken on a computer.  Each child receives the same number of questions, but the questions change in difficulty depending on how each question is answered.  In other words, each child receives a test designed for them!  The scores provide us with fairly accurate information.

**Our district has established goals/ benchmarks for each test and grade level.  If your child has not met a benchmark on one or more of the tests, we need to work together as a team to help them be successful and improve as a lifelong learner.  In addition, many of the goals go up as the year progresses.  Even if a child met a Fall goal, they will need to keep improving in order to meet Spring goals.  Please keep in mind that one test alone cannot determine an overall picture of how a child is performing in their academics.  We use a variety of scores to get a "feel" for where a child is at in their learning. 

I am committed to using SIOP (Sheltered Instruction) to help ALL students learn and grow.  This is a practice that our district has adopted and that I feel strongly about.  It is research based and has data supporting its use in the classroom.

As always, please feel free to contact me if you EVER have questions or concerns.  Email works best (afreiberg@marshalltown.k12.ia.us) but I can also be contacted at Lenihan: 641-754-1160.

Math, Social Studies, and Journaling

Parents- Please make sure your child is studying their basic facts at home!!  While we are doing Rocket Math at school, every student should still be practicing them outside of school.  This is fundamental to each child's math progress.  As story problems and computing get harder, a child will struggle if they don't know their facts.  Instead of being able to focus on solving the problem, they will spend their time trying to solve the facts needed to solve the problem.  The current math unit is on estimating and solving addition and subtraction problems.  This is difficult for those students that don't know their facts.

In Social Studies, we are learning about the Midwest Region.  This unit nicely follows the Iowa History unit.  Students are learning a lot about the area they live in.  If you have additional information that pertains to this unit, please share it with your child!

I have begun student journaling during Guided Reading.  For every entry a child writes, I write them back a letter responding to what they wrote and modeling what good writing looks like.  Please encourage your child to expand their thinking in the every day comments they make and writing they use.  There are many aspects to good writing.  Most students know some aspects really well, but have some area(s) that they can still improve on!