A letter to my teacher read aloud

A LETTER TO MY TEACHER

by Deborah Hopkinson ; illustrated by Nancy Carpenter ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 4, 2017

The titular letter reveals how a second-grade teacher effected positive changes in the life of a behaviorally challenged child.

“I hope you remember me.…I wore a bright yellow raincoat and a dark, stormy frown—because for me, school meant sitting still and listening, two things I wasn’t much good at.” Throughout the book, the nameless student—a small, pale-skinned girl with long, dark hair—exhibits behaviors that exasperate most adults and many children, too. She shouts out exuberant comments without waiting her turn; she attempts to derail read-aloud time with comical interruptions; she wanders from her class into potential danger on two field trips. The writer reminisces about how the teacher managed to avoid humiliating the girl and instead found ways to use the girl’s strengths, leading the child to the better academic and social skills that generally accompany improved self-esteem. From the cover art through the end pages, the artwork is fabulous. Skilled line drawings capture every emotion, while aesthetically appealing watercolor washes accentuate lead characters. Students are multiethnic, and the teacher has black, crinkly hair and light-brown skin. One humorous double-page spread keeps the teacher from inadvisable, total sainthood. Ironically, the number of sentences on each page and the gentle, subtle humor make this book most likely to appeal to adults and to children of the less-than-wiggly persuasion, but its empathetic message won’t be wasted on anyone.

A valuable lesson in empathy, internalized and paid forward. (Picture book. 4-8)

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Pub Date: April 4, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-375-86845-0

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017

Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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A Letter From Your Teacher Read Aloud

Why Buy A Letter From Your Teacher?

We know that running out to buy new books isn’t always an option for a teacher. Even if we want to buy ALL the books! 

Therefore, many teachers try to be mindful of which books to buy and what books to borrow. When it comes to buying a book we think it needs to be a timeless story. One that you can consistently use for several years! 

A Letter from Your Teacher on the First Day of School is one of those books! As is its partner book A Letter from Your Teacher on the Last Day of School. 

These two books by Shannon Olsen are books that are worth buying. They are both stories that remain relevant year after year. Even better, they are not grade-specific. You can teach these two books at any grade! They are also books that you can be supported by many different engaging activities. 

If you haven’t read either of these books, we are going to discuss the first book in today’s blog post. So, keep on reading to find out why you may want to buy A Letter from Your Teacher on the First Day of School. Moreover, why you may want to grab this ready to teach read aloud to go with it!

Back to School Reading Activities

When it comes to back to school activities there are several areas of focus. The immediate focus is often on getting to know you activities. These are essential to starting a new school year off on the right foot. Especially in younger grades. 

Young students need to feel safe and welcomed from that first day of school. They also need time to get to know their peers, their teacher, and other school staff. Back to school learning goes beyond getting to know you activities though. 

For teachers, that first month back to school is an important time to assess student learning. It is also an important time to create clear expectations. Clear expectations are needed for both learning and behavior. 

Providing students with clear expectations in these areas helps them to be prepared and follow through in the desired way. Moreover, clear expectations help establish effective classroom management.

Back to school reading activities are one area that can help in these areas. Teachers can use back to school paired texts to help assess student reading and writing skills. More importantly, paired texts are great to introduce at the beginning of the year so you can teach your students how to complete them. Then, you can easily use them throughout the year to continue to assess and teach.

Back to School Read Alouds

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In addition to using paired texts, back to school read alouds are perfect for the first month of school. Especially if you plan to use read alouds all year long (which we strongly recommend). 

Books selected for back to school read alouds address important themes like respect, friendship, and growth mindset. Reading together as a class in the beginning also helps create an immediate feeling of community.

Even if you already have a great collection of back to school books, we highly recommend adding A Letter from Your Teacher on the First Day of School to your collection. If you haven’t read it yet, keep reading to learn more about this book. As well as the reading activities that you can use with it. 

A Letter From Your Teacher Summary

This adorable book is the perfect creative and engaging way to introduce your students to the year ahead. In this book, the teacher writes a letter to her students. She shares it with them on the first day of school to introduce what they will learn that year. 

We love this introduction of the year because it helps students see beyond that first day of jitters. They can see all the amazing things that are coming up in the year ahead. While you may not have the exact same plan as the teacher in the book, it gives a starting point to share your year plans too. 

This book also on establishing positive relationships in the classroom. Relationships are essential to learning. Teacher to student relationships, student to student relationships,  and whole class relationships are all important. These relationships are the building blocks for effective learning and classroom management. 

The lessons taught in this book are perfect for starting to build these relationships.

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A Letter From Your Teacher Activities

There are so many amazing activities you can use alongside this book. You can write a letter to your students that explains what you will teach them during the year. You can also have students write letters to you! 

Students letters are a great way to tie the book back to getting to know you activities. Beyond a letter, you can also have students write sticky notes that share “Things I Want My Teacher to Know About Me.” 

In addition to supporting getting to know you activities, this book is perfect for teaching your students about read aloud time. Reading time is a weekly practice in most elementary classrooms. Therefore, it is important to establish clear expectations and procedures from the beginning of the year.  

One of the ways we found to support a read aloud routine is to have a clear read aloud format. This includes following the same procedure for getting to the reading carpet, sitting down, and later returning to desks. A procedure can go beyond a physical routine though. 

We found that having the same structure for learning activities also helps students. They know exactly what types of activities to expect. Furthermore, they know how what to do when they come across them. That’s why we always use the same format of activities in our read alouds. 

Using the same outline of activities also helps teachers to plan quickly and efficiently! 

Here is the outline of activities for A Letter From Your Teacher Read Aloud: 

• Detailed lesson plans
• Comprehension questions
• Whole group response to text activities
• Response to text worksheets
• Writing pages
• Vocabulary cards and worksheets
• Quiz
• Retelling puppets
• Craftivity template

This is the same outline we use for all of our interactive read alouds. We start with this outline and then make book-specific activities for each section. This helps teachers and students know what to expect.

You can try an ENTIRE read aloud for free by clicking below. 

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By starting your year with this book and read aloud packet, you are setting yourself and your students up for an easy and efficient read aloud routine for the entire school year!

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Mistakes in writing and reading: learning to overcome them

Speech therapist teacher Elena Sycheva teaches parents simple and accessible, but effective methods for solving problems with reading and writing in younger students.

Speech is a very important function. This is what distinguishes man from the animal world and makes man human. It has a tremendous impact on the development of the child, and speech and writing disorders, as a rule, become serious obstacles in learning. Oral and written language in school are the main means of learning. nine0005

It may seem that writing and reading disorders prevent the child from mastering only two subjects - the Russian language and literary reading. But in reality this is far from the case. Imperfect reading and erroneous writing can reduce a child's success in learning other subjects. If the student does not understand the conditions of the problem, then he can solve it incorrectly. It is difficult for children with speech and writing disorders to memorize and retell some speech material, it is difficult to distinguish by ear the words of both their native language and a foreign one. nine0005

Writing and reading disorders do not occur in isolation, they can affect different aspects of a child's development and learning at school.

What is the reason?

Where do such violations come from? As a rule, the cause is a violation of oral speech. Oral and written language do not exist separately from each other. They are inextricably linked, and the quality of writing and reading directly depends on the quality of oral speech.

The first thing that attentive parents should do is to make sure that by the time they enter school, the child does not read and write (which many are striving for now), but has good oral speech, that is, the foundation on which the school will build writing and reading. nine0005

If there are difficulties

There are three important steps to take to help a child who has difficulty reading and writing.

Step one. Recognition that there is a problem. No matter how simple it may sound, many parents do not always succeed in this step. Why is it difficult? When we see the problem of our son or daughter, we first of all want to find someone to blame for the fact that something is not working out for the child. As a rule, the teacher becomes guilty (because he teaches poorly) or the child (because he studies poorly). Such a blame-finding strategy is not a productive method at all. It is better to direct your energy to help your child. Establish a business contact with the teacher, show that you are interested in receiving truthful, objective, timely information. nine0005

If a child has problems with reading and writing, don't panic. The most important thing is not to hide your head in the sand and not hide your child from specialists. It is better to turn to different specialists: a doctor, a psychologist, a teacher. Reading and writing problems may be just the tip of the iceberg, and they may hide more serious developmental and health problems.

Step two. Creating a friendly environment around the child. If a child is accused, punished, scolded for mistakes, if there are constant battles with parents at the desk, there can be no talk of any benefit of such activities. I must say, children themselves are usually upset that something does not work out for them. But this happens for some time, then the child's body and psyche adapt, because the child cannot be upset all the time. As a result, he may show indifference or fun, show that he does not care. But parents should remember that this is not the case. If you find it difficult to keep cool in class with a child, seek help from specialists, or simply imagine that you are now studying not with your own, but with a neighbor's boy or someone else's girl. nine0005

Step three. Reducing the volume and speed of tasks. Many parents believe that writing and speaking disorders are "cured" by dictation and reading aloud. But the "wedge with a wedge" method does not work here. The more we force a child with writing and reading disabilities to read and write, the more mistakes he makes and the less attractive this activity becomes for him. So we are in a vicious circle. An even worse effect occurs when the child is punished with writing or reading. For example, mom angrily crosses out homework and says, “Rewrite! You are punished!" - or takes the phone away and announces: “Here is a book for you, go read. You are punished!" This can only achieve the opposite effect: the child will hate unloved activities even more. Many may be surprised to learn about the need not to increase the load, but, on the contrary, to reduce it. But nevertheless, these are the recommendations of specialists from the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. nine0005

Individualization of the educational route

1. Reducing the pace and volume of tasks.
2. Use of audio recordings of educational material.
3. Use of auxiliary didactic materials.
4. Use of a specially designed writing and reading grading scale.
5. Carrying out the current, intermediate and final certification, taking into account the existing features.

The school council or the psychological-medical-pedagogical commission (PMPC) will help to develop an individual educational route for the child, where any parent can apply on their own at their own request. nine0005

How can I correct the letter?

In addition to the fact that one should not write dictations with a child, it is important to know that children with writing and reading disorders are not shown preliminary work on a draft and subsequent rewriting in a notebook. A lot of energy is spent on such activities, the child gets tired. In addition, when he rewrites from a draft to a notebook, he can still make mistakes, which will upset both the adult and himself. In this case, it is better to use Write-Erase pens or pencils. Try to reconsider the stringent requirements for children with writing and reading disabilities. Writing with pencils gives you the opportunity to correct your incorrect spelling at any time. nine0005

Repeated rewriting of the exercise will not help to solve the problem. It leads to mechanical thoughtless memorization. It is necessary to explain to the child where his mistakes come from, so that he understands this and realizes it.

A good way to deal with writing errors is when a child dictates text to himself in a loud voice while writing. But it cannot be applied in the classroom, because there dictation is possible only in a whisper, and whispering distorts pronunciation, and this can lead to even more errors. nine0005

Children with writing disorders are also contraindicated for tasks like "Correct the mistake", that is, incorrectly written sentences or words. Such tasks can lead precisely to remembering mistakes.

What children with writing disabilities need

Teaching reading in two ways: “as they say” and “as they write”. This is the so-called spelling pronunciation. It is necessary to show children the difference in the pronunciation of words and their spelling.

Teaching dictations (optional, warning). Suppose a child confuses the letters A and O, in writing he regularly replaces one with the other. Tell him: “Now I will dictate words to you, but you write down only the letter A or O.” The child will be very happy that he will not have to write a whole word, but only a letter. You can not ask him to write at all, but make cards with the letters A and O and ask him to show the right one when dictating. If he raises the card incorrectly, the mistake will not be fixed on the letter, and therefore in the mind of the child. nine0005

In the case of a warning dictation, it is necessary to pronounce the word and ask the child if something needs to be checked here, which letter should be paid attention to, how he will write this word. Ask questions: “Why did you decide to write like that?”, “How did you check the word?”

Attracting attention to the sound of a word, its meaning, spelling. Exercise can be done not only at the desk. This can be done on the way to school, on walks, just when it comes to mind, when there is a good mood and time. It is necessary to draw the attention of the child to the sound of the word, its meaning, meaning. nine0005

Ensuring a complete speech environment next to the child. It is necessary to monitor the increase in the level of literacy of the whole family. Do all family members correctly pronounce words with some kind of complex stress, how they express their thoughts, what sentence constructions they use. All this will make up the vocabulary and knowledge base of the child.

Search for workarounds and the causes of errors in the letter. Help your child to understand the material being studied. Cramming is also sometimes useful, but it is much better when the child understands the relationships and can explain why he writes the way he writes and not the other way. Therefore, it is often necessary to look for some workarounds for children with writing and reading disorders if the material is not absorbed in the traditional way. This means that in order to facilitate the memorization of some information, it is necessary to come up with an image. For example, in order for a child to remember that a sentence is capitalized and a period is put at the end of the sentence, ask him to imagine how a line is lined up in a physical education lesson. The tallest student stands at the beginning, and the shortest at the end. The same principle is observed in the proposal. This method of memorization will help you quickly evoke the right associations. You can find such pictures on the Internet or draw a dictionary word yourself with your child. nine0005

How to improve reading

First you need to figure out exactly what the problem is: I didn’t remember all the letters, I don’t understand what I read, I read incorrectly. Then it is worth moving on to classes, in the organization of which Nikolai Burakov's manuals and didactic material for teaching reading by Galina Misarenko will help. They can be selected according to the level of complexity and depending on the task. The main thing in your activities with a child is regularity, otherwise the result will be unsatisfactory. nine0005

Another way is to use online services for teaching reading and correcting dyslexia. One of these platforms is Slogi.ru. The method of teaching reading was developed and tested in the laboratory of neurocognitive technologies of the research center of the St. Petersburg State Pediatric Medical University of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation under the guidance of Alexander Kornev, a leading specialist in Russia in solving reading problems.

You can watch Elena Sycheva's webinar here. nine0005

Letter twenty-second LOVE TO READ!. Letters about the good and beautiful

Letter twenty-second

LOVE TO READ!

Every person is obliged (I emphasize - obliged) to take care of his intellectual development. This is his duty to the society in which he lives and to himself.

The main (but, of course, not the only) way of one's intellectual development is reading.

Reading should not be random. This is a huge waste of time, and time is the greatest value that cannot be wasted on trifles. You should read according to the program, of course, not strictly following it, moving away from it where there are additional interests for the reader. However, with all the deviations from the original program, it is necessary to draw up a new one for yourself, taking into account the new interests that have appeared. nine0005

Reading, to be effective, must interest the reader. Interest in reading in general or in certain branches of culture must be developed in oneself. Interest can be largely the result of self-education.

Compiling reading programs for yourself is not so easy, and this must be done with the advice of knowledgeable people, with the existing reference books of various types.

The danger of reading is the development (conscious or unconscious) in oneself of a tendency to "diagonal" viewing of texts or to various types of speedy reading methods. nine0005

"Speed ​​reading" creates the appearance of knowledge. It can be allowed only in certain types of professions, being careful not to create in oneself the habit of speed reading, it leads to a disease of attention.

Have you noticed what a great impression those works of literature that are read in a calm, unhurried and unhurried atmosphere, for example, on vacation or in case of some not very complicated and not distracting illness, make?

Literature gives us a colossal, vast and profound experience of life. It makes a person intelligent, develops in him not only a sense of beauty, but also understanding - an understanding of life, all its complexities, serves as a guide to other eras and to other peoples, opens people's hearts to you. In a word, makes you wise. But all this is given only when you read, delving into all the little things. Because the most important thing is often in the details. And such reading is possible only when you read with pleasure, not because this or that work needs to be read (whether according to the school curriculum or at the behest of fashion and vanity), but because you like it - you felt that the author has what to say, there is something to share with you and he knows how to do it. If the first time you read the work inattentively, read it again, for the third time. A person should have favorite works that he refers to repeatedly, which he knows in detail, which he can remind others about in a suitable environment and thereby either cheer up, then defuse the situation (when irritation accumulates against each other), then laugh, then simply express your attitude to what happened to you or someone else. "Disinterested" reading was taught to me at school by my literature teacher. I studied during the years when teachers were often forced to be absent from classes - either they dug trenches near Leningrad, or they had to help some factory, or they simply got sick. Leonid Vladimirovich (that was the name of my literature teacher) often came to class when the other teacher was absent, sat down at the teacher's table at ease and, taking books out of his portfolio, offered us something to read. We already knew how he knew how to read, how he knew how to explain what he read, to laugh with us, to admire something, to be surprised at the art of the writer and to rejoice in the future. So we listened to many places from War and Peace, The Captain's Daughter, several stories by Maupassant, an epic about Nightingale Budimirovich, another epic about Dobryn Nikitich, a story about Woe-Misfortune, Krylov's fables, Derzhavin's odes and much, much more. I still love what I listened to when I was a kid. And at home, father and mother loved to read in the evenings. They read for themselves, and read some of their favorite passages for us. They read Leskov, Mamin-Sibiryak, historical novels - everything that they liked and that gradually began to please us. nine0005

"Uninterested" but interesting reading is what makes one love literature and broadens one's horizons.

Know how to read not only for school answers and not only because this or that thing is read by everyone now - it is fashionable. Be able to read with interest and slowly.

Why is TV now partially replacing books? Yes, because the TV makes you slowly watch some kind of program, sit back comfortably so that nothing bothers you, it distracts you from worries, it dictates to you how to watch and what to watch. But try to choose a book to your liking, take a break from everything in the world for a while, sit comfortably with a book, and you will understand that there are many books that you cannot live without, which are more important and interesting than many programs. I'm not saying stop watching TV. But I say: look with a choice. Spend your time on something that is worthy of this waste. Read more and read with the greatest choice. Decide for yourself your choice, in accordance with the role that your chosen book has acquired in the history of human culture in order to become a classic. This means that there is something significant in it. Or maybe this essential for the culture of mankind will be essential for you? nine0005

A classic, one that has stood the test of time. You won't waste your time with it. But the classics cannot answer all the questions of today. Therefore, it is necessary to read modern literature. Don't just jump on every trendy book. Don't be fussy. Worldliness makes a person recklessly spend the largest and most precious capital that he possesses - his time.

This text is an introductory fragment. nine0005

Second letter

Letter two I have already written to you, and I wrote in a tone full of confidence. Five years after our last meeting, I explained to you why we are stronger than you: because of the roundabout way in which we sought confirmation of our principles; due to being late, which was the fault of

LETTER TWO For the first time - OZ, 1868, No. 4, sec. II, pp. 262–272 (issued April 10). Work on the Second Letter was completed in Ryazan by March 4, 1868, when the manuscript was mailed to the editors of the magazine (see Saltykov's letter to Nekrasov dated March 4, 1868). In ed. 1869 "letter" was

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Letter two Dear N. F.! The answer came earlier than expected. Thank you very much from the farm. But there is concern. In the depths of my soul, I hoped that you would send an application for galoshes and a combined whip-umbrella to the Kremlin. You sent it to the Ministry of Agriculture. Eh, not

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Letter two "September 1, 1944 I received your message.

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