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At Booker T. Washington Elementary School,
we will provide a safe and challenging academic environment in
which all children will learn with the help of competent, caring
teachers, supportive parents and an involved community! |
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Dear
First Grade Parents,
First Graders at BTW are
beginning a “Sight
Word Challenge”. All students in first grade will be
working on mastering the first 100 sight words from Fry’s
Instant Words. Each student will be expected to master 10 words
at a time. Each child will be assessed and given an individual
set of sight words on index cards. Once the child has mastered
their words, they will be given a new set of words. In order to
celebrate their successes, each six weeks, during the awards
assemblies, children will receive certificates for mastery of
25, 50, 75, or 100 words. Once a student masters 100 sight
words, they will be given a Star Test in reading and will begin
our Accelerated Reading Program. What
exactly are "sight words?" These are words that good readers may
instantly recognize without having to "figure them out." There
are two reasons why sight words are an essential component of
good reading: First of all, many of these words do not sound
like their spellings might suggest, so "sounding them out" would
be unproductive. Also, a good reader really can’t afford the
time to dwell on too many words, or he may lose the speed and
fluency necessary for determining the author’s message. How
should we decide which words to teach as sight words? Studies
suggest that "high-frequency words" be the best place to start.
Believe it or not, the 100 most common words actually make up
about 50 percent of the material we read! The 25 most common
words make up about -third of our written material. We can
enable our students to greatly increase their reading fluency
when we teach them to read half or more of the words they
encounter in a quick and automatic manner. These sight words are
available for downloads (listed below). The challenge will
officially start on October 9, 2007. We appreciate your
support and thank you for accepting this challenge!
Virginia Caudle, Principal
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1st Grade Teachers
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