Understanding the Reading Report Card
1. Currently reading at grade level expectations.
This is an overall score of their skills at the end of 1st quarter in first grade compared to what is expected at this time. Expectations are based on state standards and assessments. It is important to look at all data including MAP and in-class activities.
2. Actively uses a variety of strategies.
Reading strategies include using the illustrations, context clues, letter sounds and word skills to figure out unknown words. This also includes using the illustrations make sense of the reading to increase comprehension.
3. Demonstrates a growing core of sight words
Sight words are pulled from their weekly reading. We will cover the basic 110 first grade sight words. Some of these words have irregular spellings (e.g. said) or common spelling patterns (e.g. jump) that allow them to read many other words with that spelling pattern. This score is taken on their fluent reading of the weekly words.
4. Uses phonics and word skills
Students should recognize all letters and letter sounds A – Z. We will be mastering 38 hunk and chunks (e.g. th, sh, ch, ee, ing, or, er) this year. We have covered th, sh, ee, or, er, oo this quarter. Students should be able to recognize these sounds fluently. Students at this point should be able to blend short vowel words.
5. Reads with fluency and expression
Students should read grade-level texts at an appropriate speed and use expression (voice changes, chunking phrases together). At this point in the year, we focus on reading word families fluently (big, wig, pig) and sight words fluently.
6. Demonstrates comprehension
Comprehension relates to identifying the genre of a text. This also means a student can recall what a story was about including the story elements. They should be able to tell the topic and main idea of a non-fiction text and give details of the main idea. Students should be able to complete a story map (fiction) or answer questions about a non-fiction text. They should be able to use text features (e.g. bold, italics, index, table of contents) to help them make sense of the text.
At this point students should be able to identify the characters and setting of a story they listened to or read with guidance.
7. Makes predictions and connections
This means that students make appropriate predictions about books based on the cover and title. Students should be able to make predictions about what might happen in the story next based on their reading. This also means that students can make connections with the text. This includes text to self (book to their life experiences), text to text (book to book) and text to world. At this point in the year we have made predictions based on the cover and title and predictions while reading.
8. Retells a story in a sequence
Students should be able to retell a story in the correct order and with appropriate details. These details should include reference to the characters, problem, solution, and setting. We have focused on telling something about the beginning, middle, and end.
9. Applies knowledge of vocabulary
Students should be able to explain and use the vocabulary words that we cover in class in our weekly stories including other subject areas of science, social studies, and math. This includes things such as homophone, synonyms, antonyms, contractions, and compound words. We focused mostly on story vocabulary and introduced contractions, compound words, and homophones as they appeared in our readings.