Our school believes that children who are good readers and writers will be
better, happier students and citizens. We have made a commitment to do all
that we can to ensure that all of our students will be good readers and
writers. Because our school recognizes that all children learn differently,
we know that we must find ways to reach children no matter what their
strengths and weaknesses might be.
As your child's teacher, I will be using a method of instruction called the
Four-Blocks Model, and I want to tell you more about it. I also want to ask
that you play an important part in helping me with the development of your
child as a reader and writer.
There are four basic ways that students have always learned to read.
Usually, a school or teacher would choose one of those methods in hopes of
reaching most of the students. The Four-Blocks Model, however, allows me to
teach all students by teaching all four methods every day.
The Four-Block method has proven to be quite effective for the schools that
implement it, and the first grade teachers at Westwood have worked hard to
learn to use this method at our school.We have four-blocks of time devoted
to language during the day. These blocks are as follows:
1)Guided Reading Block - Whole group instruction in which we teach the
skills necessary to be good readers. We focus on areas of reading that will
help your student to comprehend the written text. We get really excited
about reading!
2)Self Selected Reading Block - During this time students will have an
opportunity to see themselves as readers and will build their fluency, the
ability to read smoothly. Students select books that they can read from the
book shelf and read independently or with a small group. During this time
the teacher will have conferences with students .
3)Writing Block - Students will learn to think about and use their knowledge
of phonics to write compositions. They will learn penmanship, the writing
process, grammar, and the mechanics of good writing.
4)Working with Words - During this time students explore words, word families
(patterns), spelling, and phonics, and to see how they can use what they
learn about words in their reading and writing. Each week we introduce 5 new
words that are added to our WORD WALL..these words are generally high
frequency words or words that we use often that do not follow the phonetic
rules.
If you have any questions about our reading program...please e-mail or call
me at the school.