Mid-Year (January) Report Card
Dear Parents,
Your child’s 1st report card will be available for viewing online today. This is the first year that we’ve changed from 3 report cards in a trimester model to two report cards, one mid-year in January and one at the end of the year in June. This change has also brought a new spring parent-teacher conference in addition to the fall conference.
EVERY child has strengths to celebrate and areas for growth. Please help your child to celebrate their progress and remind them that, together, you and I will support them on things that are challenging.
Grading: The report card lists the end of the year standards for each skill in the 1st grade curriculum. Standards have benchmarks for each semester. (These are NOT listed on the report card.) That’s a step along the way where children are expected to be as they work toward the year end standard.
The report card contains a number rubric (1-4) for academic skills. A “3” means that a student has met the benchmark. “4” means that a student has exceeded the benchmark and independently and consistently applies that skill without teacher support. In some skills, “3” is the highest grade that can be given. For instance, “Tells the number of syllables in a word” is a skill that is either achieved or not. This is an example of a skill that cannot be extended on the report card.
A letter grade is given for all work habits, social skills (listed on the “Homeroom” page) and effort grades. C (Consistently) means that a student is doing that skill most of the time with very little teacher support. U (Usually) means that a student is approaching independence, but needs some reminders. Most 1st graders are at this level at this time. S (Sometimes) indicates that a student is working on that area but needs lots of support and reminders. R (Rarely) means that a skill needs significant teacher support and is very challenging for the student at this time. Please know that we will continue to support your child in proactive and positive ways as he or she works toward growth in all of these important areas.
Good social skills and work habits (SS) are essential for success! They are working on following the rules and cooperating with their peers. They are expected to maintain and organize their materials in their work chair pockets and folders. They are learning how to manage their time in order to complete their work. This might mean focusing in order to finish in time, or slowing down in order to do their best neat and careful work. Our classroom routines support independence in the classroom. We learn about being assertive, which helps them ask for help when needed, actively participate and contribute to class discussion and solve problems. Two of the most challenging areas for first graders are the connected skills of listening attentively and following directions. We have talked about what good listening looks like and why it is so important. You can help by making sure that distracting items (jewelry, toys, and any extras) stay at home. Please help to reinforce good listening and following directions the first time at home, and talk with your child about how important these skills are to ensure success in school.
Reading: Children enter first grade at various reading levels, and we work to move them forward from that point. All children have made progress in reading, and that is something to celebrate! At school we work on applying phonics skills to decode when reading. This can be slow at first, but with repeated readings of familiar text, deciding becomes more fluent and automatic. This also helps to increase phrasing and expression in reading as well. As a child strengthens their high frequency word recognition, those words can be read automatically, further supporting their reading skills.
The most important aspect of reading is comprehension. Students demonstrate comprehension through a detailed and sequential retelling of what they’ve read. We talk about our favorite parts and make connections with what we read. At this point we’re working on making deeper connections to the bigger ideas in the story. Kids might connect to something in their own lives, or as their volume in reading grows, they can make more text to text connections between books.
Please continue nightly reading to/with your child. Reading aloud to your child (even after they can read themselves) increases their vocabulary and exposes them to complex language that they might not be ready for in their independent reading. It also exposes them to a variety of writing styles that they can emulate as they become authors themselves. You model fluent, expressive reading…and it’s just fun!
Writing: You should notice the content of your child’s writing improving as the year goes by. In the beginning of the year, many children would complete only the first framed sentence. “This weekend I…” Now we are working on using stronger and varied topic sentences, at least 2 more supporting/detail sentences and a closing sentence. . (The writing standard is at least 3 sentences now and at 5 by the end of the year.) Writers should pick a topic that we have a lot to say about and stay on that topic throughout the whole writing piece. Talking about the ideas for story topics with your child before they head off to school Monday morning is a great way to help them choose their topic and get ideas ready for writing.
*In the beginning of the year, many children wrote in mostly uppercase letters or used uppercase letters randomly throughout their writing. Now we are working on using uppercase letters only at the beginning of sentences and in special words. At this time we should not see uppercase letters in the middle of any words. As we say in class “You need a reason for an uppercase!”
You should see improvement in general letter formation and spacing between words. We’ve been working on attending to the lines as we write “tall”, “small” or “hang down low” letters. We have focused on all of the letters in our Handwriting Without Tears program and are practicing with integrated writing skills in our Building Writers book.
Spelling: You should notice improvements in spelling. We are working to stretch and sound out words when writing. Phonetic spelling is still strongly encouraged at this time, with students applying the phonics skills that we’ve focused on (all short vowels, blends, digraphs, some long vowel patterns and word ending -ing, -ed…). We are getting better at editing for correct spelling of our High Frequency Words. Kids are using word banks and environmental references (ex: days of the week/months on the calendar.) to support spelling in their writing.
Parents often ask what they can do to support their child’s writing at home. Continue to provide lots of opportunities to write…making lists, writing thank you notes, making cards to name a few. Giving them a journal that they can write and draw in will help to provide additional practice. Looking at family pictures and telling stories about favorite trips, holidays or favorite memories will help to develop a sense of story that will help them to generate topics and expand ideas for writing.
Math- You will notice that several skills on the report card are marked as NA. Although we may have worked with these skills incidentally (as they come up in daily, real-life math opportunities) , they have not been specifically taught, had focused practice and been assessed. As with literacy skills, a student receives a 4 only if they demonstrate immediate mastery of a skill or concept and are able to apply it in a more sophisticated way to solve problems accurately and consistently.
For the first part of the year, our math program focuses on strengthening number sense and composing (adding) and decomposing (taking apart) small numbers at first. Kids are more able to utilize those skills in problem solving situations and explain their mathematical thinking.
Fact Fluency- At the end of kindergarten, students are expected to have automaticity with addition facts with sums to 5 and subtraction within 5. This means that they can compute the facts in 3 seconds or less. In this first trimester, we have continued to develop fact power with these facts, and have included the +1 and +0 facts with 10. We’re currently working with doubles and compliments of 10.
This is a great time of year to practice and encourage independence with self-help skills, too. Some kids have mastered shoe tying, but most 1st graders are still working on this tricky skill. Zipping jackets on their own (before gloves or mittens are on) is something that most 1st graders need regular practice with. Opening snacks independently is another everyday skill to work on. Provide lots of extra time, opportunities to practice and encouragement and they’ll be doing these things on their own before you know it!
Thank you for your continued support.
The Fales 1st Grade Teachers