Below is a short list of ways to help your child learn to be a great mathematical thinker.  Check with your child's teacher for more ideas.

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.

How You Can Help 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.

Good Ideas for Books:  

   Below is a short list of good books.  Check with you child's teacher for more book ideas.

Grades K-2

Frog and Toad series 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.

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

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.