Welcome back! I hope everyone had a great break. I can't believe it is already 2011. Before we know it, it will be spring break and then May!
This week we are reviewing for our Dibles test that is coming up next week. Dibles is the standardized test of kindergarten. Students will be pulled into another room to take the test. They will be asked to do several different portions of the test. On the first portion, they will have to say the beginning sound of the word. For example, if the teacher says "teach" they will need to say /t/. They have one minute for all of the parts of the test so the faster the better! The next part of the test is a letter assessment. Students have several rows of upper and lower case letters that they need to speed through saying the letter names, not the sounds. Students get points for how many letters they can name in a minute. The next test students are given a word and they must segment the sounds they hear. So if the teacher says cat they must say /c/-/a/-/t/. They need to break apart each sound they hear. The next portion students have to read make believe words. At this point we would at least like them to say the sounds of the word so if they see nuf, at the very least they need to be saying /n/-/u/-/f/. Ideally, we would like them to just read the word without having to sound it out.
I know there is a lot on this exam and it may look overwhelming but it doesn't seem to be for the students. We will be working all week on mastering these skills in class but any help at home would be great! The hardest one for them to do seems to be the segmenting of words so if everyone could work on that at home I know we will do super!
The honor roll assembly is on Friday from 8:30-9:15. We have several students being honored. Everyone is welcome to attend. If your child is receiving an award, you will be getting an invitation home today!
Homework was due yesterday, I did not receive very many packets. Please make sure you turn in your packet as soon as you can. Another packet went home yesterday. Please let me know if you did not receive one.
Please continue to read the little orange books at home. These students are definitely ready to be reading so your help at home will get them there!
I hope everyone has a great week. Please email me if you have any questions.
