Reading - All Students! Read at least 20 minutes a day! “Reading a minimum of 20 minutes a day allows children's vocabulary to grow and expand, exposing them to 1.8 million vocabulary words a year.” -Elizabeth Barnes, Children's Reading Foundation of the Mid-Columbia.
Did You Know? If a child reads for 20 minutes every day, they are exposed to about 1.8 million words of text every year. 1 That is 137 new words per minute!
If families read together for 20 minutes a day, 7 days a week, they get more than 121 hours of bonding time every year!
1 Anderson, R.C., Wilson, P.T., Fielding, L.G. (1988). “Growth in Reading and How Children Spend Their Time Outside of School,” Reading Research Quarterly, 23(3), pp. 285–303.
From the Children's Reading Institute For children in kindergarten, assist them with exercises that help develop skills in sound recognition, letter recognition, simple blending and simple rhyming.
Blending may not be a term you are familiar with. It is when children can smoothly join the individual letter sounds together when sounding out words. For example, smooth blending of simple words is when a child is sounding out the word like cat as /ccaat/ instead of a choppy or segmented /c/ .... /a/ .... /t/. In the first and second grades, there is additional focus on the three primary sub-areas of reading: accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. By third grade, most children are reading by themselves. It is important to continue reading aloud to further develop essential skills with more challenging reading material. Plus it is a positive, rewarding experience. When you read aloud, you can read books at the child’s listening level, which is higher than his or her reading level. This provides the opportunity to expand a child’s vocabulary. The wonderful, unique words found in children’s literature are often words we do not use in everyday conversations. A large vocabulary will improve the child’s comprehension as he or she reads more sophisticated books.
Math - All Students! Practicing math skills at least two to three times a week can make a BIG difference in your child's learning and retention. To help students retain the gains they have made or help with the gaps they might have, please encourage your children to complete at least three twenty minute math review sessions each week.
Click HERE to use the Khan Academy Getting Ready Coursesto help your child review and prepare for next year's math class. This great resource is for all grade levels.
Click HERE to join the Camp Khan Kids for children 2-8 years old.
The HVA 23-24 Calendar is included below. First quarter dates and important fall information and deadlines will be also be listed here soon.
