Thursday Afternoons: Untangling Confusions

Assessment Sessions 

September/October

January

May/June

During this time and during some time during the typical class time, your child will participate in the following: math assessments, alphabet recognition and letter/sound automaticity (rapid, automatic naming); writing the alphabet; writing numbers; reading sight words: DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills); and phonemic awareness. Additional assessments may be used to establish your child's skill level and her/his application of those skills to classwork. This data allows us to engage and challenge students at the "edge," or most appropriate level, of their development in each given area. Please note that we do not assess all of these areas at once. We do certain assessments at certain times during the year with goal of  guiding all children to meet kindergarten benchmarks by the end of the school year. It is important to note that "assessment" and analysis of your child's skills occurs anecdotally and informally all the time as your child engages in the curriculum.

4-6 Week Afternoon Sessions

These sessions will be scheduled for logical periods of time during the calendar year so as to provide as much consistency as possible for the students in the group. Each group will have no more than 4-6 students at at time. The district's intention behind this unique, enviable program design is to provide targeted, well-informed early intervention for students during this critical period of language and literacy development and mathematical understanding. Additionally, there may be opportunities to provide enrichment for students displaying advanced skills. If I feel your child would benefit from the focus area of a given session, I will extend an invitation for your child to attend at least one week in advance.