Course Outline

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Reading Recovery

This course is designed for those individuals who are showing early signs of difficulty with reading and writing.

Reading Recovery is preventative in order to encourage those students to participate in daily individual instruction in reading and writing activities.

Selection of students

The choice of whom to work with is based on a number of evaluation tasks. This is done through an observation survey that includes letter identification, concepts about print, word reading list, writing vocabulary, hearing and recording sounds, Burt reading sheet and three running records with hard, instructional and easy texts.

The child's age is also taken into account in the selection process. If the stanines or scores on these tasks are lower; Ex. 1, 2, 3... and the child is 6:4 or older, then they are usually chosen.

Roaming Around the Known

For ten days, those students chosen, take part in a daily 30 minute lesson. At this time, they read a number of books at their instructional level, work on their high frequency words, construct an alphabet book with letters, sounds and words. They also do some activities with magnetic letters and compose small stories that they are able to read.

Lessons

After ten days of reviewing all of the information that the child knows, the individual lessons begin. These are daily, one-on-one and are 30 minutes long.

A typical lesson involves the student reading 2-3 familiar books. Then a Running Record (evaluation) is taken of the new text introduced to them the day before. The student works with magnetic letters, separating them into groups, discussing the sounds, letter names and word beginning with that letter. Sometimes we 'make and break' a word; Ex. book look hook and the student works on a challenging word.

Writing in their own book is next. We compose a sentence that is relevant to them. We work on the sentence together, concentrating on bringing 1-2 words to mastery. The sentence is written by the teacher on a strip of paper, cut into chunks of words and the student puts it back together again, reads it and then places it in an envelope to take home.

The last task is to introduce a new text to the student. A summary of the book is given, the book is looked at together, story pattern is reinforced, challenging words are pointed out and then the student reads it independently.

A familiar book is taken home with the cut up sentence.

Discontinued or Referred

At the end of approximately 20 weeks, the students undergo another observation survey. The evaluation tasks are the same as when they were selected. The survey is consulted and the ultimate decision to discontinue a student or refer them is made. A number of factors affect the decision; reading level of 16 or above, a good list of high frequency words the child is able to read and write, concepts about print and stanines of the above mentioned tasks.

Music P-6

Students will be taking part in a number of activities in the music program. They will be expected to express their ideas, create their own music, present it, explore musical skills, techniques and the process of making music. They will also be making connections between the arts, society and their environments.

We will also be discussing the contributions of individuals and cultural groups in local and global contexts. The students will be taught to respect other individual's musical preference, their experiences and the way they express them.

Technology of the past and present and how it has contributed to music will also be discussed.

The individual grades will be working on varying programs based on their ages and abilities.

 Ex.  tempo        dynamics         articulation        rhythm        pitch        beat        time signature

        classical        country        music alphabet FACE EGBDF        percussion        wind        string

Students will be expected to participate in a school wide Christmas Concert. Recorders will be purchased this year,  so grades 3-5 may participate in this program. 

Evaluation

This will usually take the form of daily participation during music classes. Written work in scribblers, quizzes and tests on musical terms will be taken into consideration towards the mark as well. Projects and performances will also contribute towards the final mark

Instructional Coach

Teachers will have scheduled times throughout a four day schedule to utilize the instructional coach in curriculum and lesson planning, assessment implementation and feedback on lessons that the staff member has requested the instructional coach observe.

The instructional coach is also available to research a subject, and to develop and collect resource materials that would be helpful for the classroom teacher.