Last week our class participated in the Christmas bird count.  It was a bit chilly so we didn't see huge numbers of birds, but it was fun to watch and tally what we did see.  Our greatest number was chickadees.  We also saw gold finches, juncos, blue jays, and a cardinal that generated great excitement each time he came into view.  Fortunately the count is based on the largest number of a species seen at one time so we didn't have to worry about children getting carried away with tallies on our charts!  Thanks to Patti Haynes for signing us up to participate in the count and keeping our feeders full.

We have finished learning lower case letters along with their corresponding sounds and written formations.  While we will continue to practice both letter recognition and formation regularly, we have also been spending time using letters and sounds to make and read words.  Some of the ways we have been practicing these skills include playing guess my word (also known as hangman),  reading words with the same ending, changing just the beginning sound to make a new word or sometimes even a nonsense word (map, cap, tap, sap, jap, vap), and using letter tiles to build words by breaking them down into their individual sounds.  For all of these activities right now we are focusing on three letter words with short vowel sounds.

We have also started reading emergent books with predictable patterns.  Some strategies we have been using to help us read are pointing to the words and making sure we say just one word for each written word, paying particular attention to the first letter and sound of a given word (while the English language has many inconsistencies, most often the first letter of a word corresponds to the first sound), recognizing familiar sight words, and using the pictures to make sense of the text.

While actually reading words is a critical component for reading development, it is just one small piece and children tend to master this skill at individual paces.  I often think of the acquisition of reading as very similar to the acquisition of walking: certain components need to be in place for children to acquire these skills.  As long as these components are in place, children will learn to walk and also learn to read but they might do this at very different paces. 

As children are learning to read, it is important for them to focus on their own growth and not compare themselves to other children.  This is a point I try to revisit often and I find that children easily relate to the comparison to walking.   Some children may have used the support of furniture or a steady hand to practice moving on two feet, while others just stood up one day and took their first independent steps almost instantly. Likewise, some children will spend a lot of time practicing reading before actually reading many words, while others will seem to start reading overnight.  Today they are all adept walkers and it would be hard to determine who learned to walk first based on their current walking skills.  Similarly, they will all become adept readers and eventually it will be impossible to tell how fast each child learned to read.

Finally, while we spend a significant amount of time working on reading words at school (and if children are interested it is certainly helpful to practice at home as well), perhaps the most important thing parents can do to support reading development is read aloud to your children and foster a love of books.

We had a lovely day for ECO on Wednesday.  Students did a fantastic job of remembering and following ECO expectations after three weeks away from the forest- they were even complimented multiple times by one of our adult volunteers!  Our focus for the morning was creating rabbitats - child made slash piles where a rabbit might safely hide from a predator.  Your child may be able to give you more details about the construction of these and even tell you a story to go along with their creation as well.  Next week we will check for evidence of any visitors to these shelters.

Children also had time for some forest choice - building, roasting apples, peeling sticks or some combination of the three!  Next week is our last ECO for the fall.  Thank you for all of your support in sending your children prepared for our time outside and also thank you to the many, many adults who have joined us for a session.