Helping Your Child Learn To Read

Edmonds School District Reading Improvement Goals

How You Can Help Your Child: Grades K-3

~ Read with your child every day.

~ Get the whole family involved in reading books (or favorite parts of books) and read aloud

to each other.

~ Encourage your child to tell the story from the pictures in a book.

~ Talk about the books your child reads or the books you read aloud.

~ Ask questions. Have your child make guesses about what will happen next.

~ Encourage your child to act out stories.

~ Play word games with your child.

~ Take your child to the library often. It is free, and has a wide selection of books.

Helping Your Child: Grades 4-6

~ Be a reading role model – make sure children see you reading. Have lots of reading

materials around (newspapers, maps, magazines, books, catalogs).

~ Set a regular time for silent reading.

~ Get the whole family involved in reading books (or favorite parts of books) and read aloud

to each other.

~ Ask your child to talk about reading. Help your child look up answers to questions.

~ Encourage your child to write about reading. Write stories, letters, and poems. Make

cards and lists.

~ Take your child to the library on a regular basis.

Here Are Some Good Ideas for Books:

Grades K-2

*Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel

*Little Bear by E. H. Minarik

*Monarch Butterfly by Gail Gibbons

*Nate the Great Series by M. Weinman Sharmat

Grades 3-4

*Animal Facts/Animal Fable by Seymour Simon

*Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

*Knots on a Counting Rope by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault

*Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe

Grades 5-6

*Journey to Topaz by Yoshiko Uchida

*Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor

*Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

What the State Requires:

Every school must set goals to increase the number of fourth, seventh, and tenth grade students who are proficient readers. Fall 2004 is the next checkpoint to report whether districts have met the reading goals.

A state test at grades 4, 7, and 10, the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), is used to measure whether students are meeting standards set for reading. This chart shows the reading improvement goals for Edmonds. The first state checkpoint was in 2001. The next checkpoint will be in 2004.

The Percentage of Edmonds Students Who Met/Must Meet Reading WASL Standards

Grade	2001	2004
4^th	71%	78%
7^th	37%	53%
10^th	69%	77%

Our Plan for Meeting State Requirements:

To ensure that all students are successful in learning to read, we have defined essential learnings at each grade level. We encourage schools to develop effective strategies such as:

~ Clear reading expectations are communicated to students.

~ Students read a wide Variety of materials including both reading for pleasure

and information

~ Students are given time to read on a regular basis at school.

~ Reading time includes teaching reading skills. It also includes talking and writing

about what is read.

We have identified the following indicators of student reading success to be important:

~ Students are able to read accurately and smoothly at the expected level.

~ Students are able to understand what they read at the expected level.

~ Students show a positive attitude toward reading.