Title One Newsletter
September 2018
What is Title One
What is Title I? Title I is a section of federal education law that provides funding to elementary and secondary schools for programs and services to help disadvantaged students succeed. Title I is the largest federal aid program available to school districts. The goals of the Title I law are to provide direct instructional support to students and professional development for teachers, in addition to promoting parent education and involvement.
The Importance of Parental Involvement
“The evidence is consistent, positive, and convincing: families have a major influence on their child’s achievement in school and through life. When schools, families, and community groups work together to support learning, children do better in school, stay in school longer, and like school more”. - Henderson & Mapp, 2002.
What can you do at home?
1. START A HABIT: Encourage your youngster to treat studying as a daily assignment, not just something he does the night before a test. Create a quite workspace for your child and create a calendar for studying. For example, you could schedule 15 minutes of word work every night to prepare for a spelling test on Friday.
2. AFTER SCHOOL CHATS: Greet your child after school with this simple question – “What’s in your backpack?”, and you’ll discover a lot about what she does in class! Set aside time each day to go through her papers, looking over the work together. Help her feel proud by making some specific comments about something she’s done. Or walk through a plan for tackling a challenging homework assignment.
3. GET INVOLVED: The best way to support your child at home is to learn with them! Read daily to your child or have them read to you, and then discuss new information and ideas. Help with homework even if you aren’t sure how to complete it. Modeling problem solving and perseverance in solving a problem is a great way to help learners with challenging tasks. Attend events including parent-teacher nights, school-sponsored functions, and field trips. And most importantly, speak positively about school and learning. Be a lifelong learner – your child is watching!
Title One meetings
Interested in learning more details about what Title one is about? We have a series of meetings you may attend. October 2- 3:45pm to 4:30 pm at East Elementary in the library. October 3, 2018 at Maple Ridge Elementary at 11:00am-12:00pm. October 3, 2018 at Pendleton Elementary Intermediate in the library from 6:00pm-7:30pm( Child Care is available at this meeting)
Five Steps to Help your Child Become a Better Reader.
Children can learn reading comprehension strategies even before they’re able to read texts on their own.
By watching and listening to adults model reading strategies during read-alouds, even our tiniest ones will begin to pick up on the habits of strong readers. Then by the time they are reading on their own, these children will naturally make predictions, activate schema, ask questions, make connections, and visualize what they’re reading.
Parents can incorporate reading strategy work on the fly, at any time, with little to no prep at all. All parents need are just a few key words and phrases to keep in their back pocket to pull out during time spent reading with kids.
- Predicting is simply making a logical guess about a story or article before the text is read. Model predicting by:
- Examining the cover of the book and talking about the book’s title before reading. Say, “The title of the book is Stranger in the Woods, and on the cover I see two deer looking at a snowman. My guess is that the snowman will be the ‘stranger in the woods.’ Let’s see.”
- Stopping midway though a book and saying, “Okay, I know that Lucky the dog keeps following the leprechaun. Will the leprechaun ever be nice to that poor dog? I bet they’ll be friends by the end.”
- Activating schema just means that you’re getting children to think about what they already know about a subject before they read or talk about the topic. You can activate schema by:
- Saying, “The book we’re going to read is called Penguin Puzzle, and it looks like it’s about penguins. I know that penguins live in cold areas and that they can’t fly. What can you remember about penguins?”
- Saying, “The book we’re going to read is called Penguin Puzzle, and it looks like it’s about penguins. I know that penguins live in cold areas and that they can’t fly. What can you remember about penguins?”
- Questioning is a skill critical for developing reading comprehension. When we model questioning, we show children that it is super important to think about what they’re reading as they’re reading. After every few paragraphs or pages, model how you reflect on what you read:
- “I wonder why . . .”
- “What will happen to the . . .”
- “Why is the little girl frowning in that picture . . .”
- “How does the dog feel now that . . .”
- Making connections draws readers closer to texts. They feel more in touch with characters, events, and ideas when they are able to find some basic similarities with them, and as a result, readers are more likely to remember what they read. Connecting is easy for young readers to do on their own. Model connecting by saying:
- “I know how that character feels! I remember when I fell and hurt my knee . . .”
- “We saw the very same sand crabs when we were at the beach last year. Remember?”
- “You have a brother and a sister, just like Arthur.”
- “You will start school in the fall, and we just read a book last week about Max who was starting at a new school.”
- Visualizing is simply having readers picture, or visualize, what they are reading. Visualizing isn’t always necessary when reading richly illustrated children’s books, but when reading stories, poems, or articles that lack photos, parents can say:
- “When I read these words, I can really feel the warm breeze blow through my hair.”
- “Close your eyes, and tell me what you see when I read this poem. What pictures does it put in your mind?”
Every little bit we can do will help our children become the best readers and thinkers they can be — even before they’re reading on their own!