Dear Literacy Extensions (Reading Class) Families: Welcome to the 2013-2014 school year here at Mill Creek!

I am excited to be joining you this year in facilitating your childs education! Our Literacy staff at Mill Creek consists of 4 staff members with various duties; each Literacy staff member will have a different placement in terms of grade level and/or subject area in which they will be working. I feel lucky again this year to have 6th and 7th grade classes that will be in this classroom for supplementary Literacy instruction. In the first 9 weeks of school, your student will begin work in the following areas:

READING~

Our primary focus for the first nine weeks will be on

Informational Text (Biographies, Autobiographies, Historical, Science, etc.)

Your child will not only be exposed to these genres of text, but will hear them
read aloud, will write their own biographies and autobiographies, and will complete activities in their notebooks relating to informational text.

ROUTINE ACTIVITIES~
daily or weekly basis include

Activities that we will be doing either on a

T.A.B.~ Totally Awesome Books : Every day your child will enter class,

fill out their Reading Bragging Sheet and begin reading for a 10 minute block. Please feel free to send in reading books, magazines, etc. from home as long as they are school appropriate
Reading Bragging Sheet : Your child will have a goal each week for

reading and they will keep track weekly of their progress

Writers Notebook and Sneezes: Your child will be writing a few

times per week, in a notebook that stays IN class, with varying topics, starters, free choice, and they will also glue in skill/strategy specific activities into this notebook

Argument/Opinionated Writing~ We ALL know how much a middle

schooler likes to voice their opinion, and make SURE its heard, on a subject and what better way than in a class writing project each week! These will be written in their WRITERS NOTEBOOKS
Multi-Genre Project work~ This year your child will COMPLETE a multi

genre project that includes 15 transitional pieces of writing, research, notecards, table of contents, 6 choice writings, and 5 required writings. It sounds like a lot of work, and it is, however most students LOVE them once they are completed at the end of the year!
Read Alouds~ I will be reading books (of diverse genres) and articles

aloud to the students each week to model fluency, inflection, and

GRADING~

Students will be graded on participation, behavior, daily work,

projects, and writing notebooks. Our goal for your student is to increases their reading and writing comprehension through multi-genre, routine, computer skill work, small group, and one-on-one activities, as well as other activities! Please be sure to sign up for Family Access if you have not already in order to obtain a password to access your students grades. Please visit the office if you need help with this. I plan to send home a Parent Communication Newsletter each of the nine week marking periods. In that newsletter you will read about the specific activities, goals, and progress of the class. Also attached to the newsletter will be YOUR childs detailed testing scores with a note explaining what they mean. If you ever have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me at jromanick@cppschools.com. I look forward to partnering with you this year! Enjoy your last few days of summer vacation!

Mrs. Romanick