Monthly Archives: July 2020

5-Finger Rule for choosing a “Just Right” book

There are so many different books and sometimes students have a hard time to choose the book that is perfect for them to read independently. It is useful to teach students to apply a 5-Finger Rule to find a right book. As a parent, be aware that the 5-Finger Rule only helps to evaluate student’s ability to read words.  You still want to check that your child understands the story by asking questions about the book.

 Here is the process:

Open a book to the middle and begin reading.   For each word you don’t know, put up one finger.   If at the end of the page you have:

5 or more fingers up – too hard and challenging, save for later book

4 fingers up – very challenging

2-3 fingers up – just right

0-1 fingers up – too easy, vacation book

Happy Reading!

 

Proofreading Strategies

Proofreading is an important writing strategy that students need to develop to become better writers.  The ability to get your thoughts across on a page is a skill that every young person needs to hone.   Writing is a life skill and so therefore proofreading is essential.  In this day and age, technology is playing a greater part in the writing process and fortunately we have the use of spellcheckers in our word processing programs.  Unfortunately, these spellchecker programs do not always catch our mistakes and so this following strategy will help you to proofread your work before you send it to the recipient.  The first strategy that I am going to discuss is the use of the mnemonic called COPS which stands for: Capitalization, Organization, Punctuation and Spelling. Once a student has finished their piece of writing they can be instructed to check their writing by looking at those four areas.  They can even be told that if they fail to check their writing for these four areas then they may get a visit from the Writing Police.  The illustration below can be used as a reminder for each student to proofread their writing.