Mrs. Noland
email: snoland@rivervalleyschools.org
School phone: 756-9541 extension 1123
Welcome to my homepage. Make sure to check each week for news regarding Title I information, upcoming activities and events. There will also be suggestions on ways to help your child with his/her comprehension, vocabulary and study skills tips.
I have been teaching for twelve years. I was Library Media Specialist for 9 years, taught sixth grade 1 year and this is my third year as Title I Instructor. I am looking forward to this 2011-2012 school year.
Personal
I have been married for thirty-eight years to my husband Bill and have two grown children, Nick and Kelly. I also have a 3 year old Cockalier puppy (more like a third child) named Toby, who is spoiled rotten. I love to travel, read and spend time with my family.
Education
I received a bachelors degree in Elementary Education from Saginaw Valley State University, a Masters in Reading from Western Michigan University and a Library Science endorsement from Grand Valley State University.
Goals
To enhance students vocabulary.
To aid students in comprehension of reading materials.
Encourage students to read everyday.
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Suggestions for helping your child with homework.
- Have student sit in quiet, distraction free place to complete homework.
- TV and stereo turned off, this keeps the student focused.
- Make sure he/she has used the restroom and has a drink at the table with them (this cuts down on the frequency of having to leave and get off track).
- Middle School students should be able to work at least 30-45 minutes without taking a break.
- Let your child know that you are willing to help him/her with homework.
- Let your child read to you or you read to them; some students are auditory learners and learn more by hearing the materials read out loud.
- Read with your child or have him/her read every night for at least 1/2 hour.
- Check your child's understanding of what he/she has read, stop occasionally and ask questions about the characters and events in the story.
- Have your child predict what will happen next.
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Class Information
Vocabulary Skills:
.Students will be revisiting sight words, understanding unknown words by using contest clues, nouns
(proper and common), verbs, adjectives, pronouns,
adverbs, conjunctions and interjections.
Comprehension Skills:
Students will be working on comprehension skills:main idea, inferences, drawing conclusions
(reading between the lines), and cause and effect. Students will be reading for comprehension and to
increase their reading rate. We are working very hard
to get students to understand what they read, not just
word calling. For some students this is a struggle, they
are in the habit of just reading to finish. Students are
stopping as they read and “pondering” what they have
just read. I can see that students are taking their time
and are able to answer more questions regarding the
story.
Reading Rate for students (in the 50% percentile) in the middle school at this point in the school year is:
6th graders: 140 words per minute
7th graders: 136 words per minute
8th graders: 146 words per minute
How many words per minute is your child reading?
Game Day:
One Friday a month is game day , students play games such as Scrabble, Homonyms, Synonyms or Antonyms Memory, SpellDown and Quizmo Analogies. Each game that they play supports
the skills learned throughout the month. Students are getting very good at some of the games, of course
Scrabble is one they request not to play, but we play it for building vocabulary and spelling.
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Mrs. Noland’s News
February 2012
All middle school students just finished the winter Aimsweb Assessment tests, my Title I students did a very nice job on both the comprehension and fluency. I am very proud of my students, they have worked very hard this year. The old saying "
The more that you read, the more things you will know (Dr. Seuss)
", is very true. The more students read the faster they can read and this is always helpful when they have homework in every class. Students who read independently for 20 minutes a day can increase their vocabulary by 1,000 words per year (Buehl; Nagy).
Comprehension is a problem for some students,when asked to read a passage they reply I did, but when asked what they read, they can't tell me. This is what I call word callers, they can read, but they forget to engage in their reading. To help solve this, I ask students to make movies in their mind as they read. If they can't picture what is happening, they need to go back and reread the section.
Reading encompasses so many different skills, you can't talk about reading unless you mention vocabulary, comprehension, phonics, phonemic awareness and reading fluency. A child has to have all these components to be a good reader. If a child is missing or weak in one of these areas it creates a problem in reading. The students I work with in Tile I need help mostly in vocabulary, comprehension and reading fluency. Do you know how many words per minute you can read? How about your child? These are the skills that we work on every day.
When we read, we need to be active in our reading, not just word calling (reading the words). As adults we stop and connect the reading to something familiar to us (prior knowledge), if we don't understand what we just read we reread the section again. These are two skills that our students don't take the time to do. Students just want to get the reading completed, they don't care that they don't understand it. The assignment was to read it. I am trying to teach students to stop and think about what they just read-make those connections to their prior knowledge. If they can't tell me one thing that they read, they need to reread it.
Context clues are very important to constructing the meaning of a sentence or paragraph. You may not know the word, but if you finish reading the sentence or paragraph you should be able to use the words surrounding it to figure out the meaning of the word. This is a skill that takes practice and we work on this everyday in Title I. Other vocabulary skills have been prefixes, suffixes, multiple meanings, synonyms and antonyms.
If you have any question regarding your child’s progress in Title I, please call or email me at snoland@rivervalleyschools.org or 756-9541 ex. 1123.
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Helpful Web sites
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Meetings
Date |
Time |
Place |
| Feb. 29, 2012 |
3:30-7:30 |
Classrooms |
Mar. 1, 2012 |
3:30-7:00 |
Gym |
"The best way to predict your future is to create it."
~ Unknown
"Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use."
~ Earl Nightingale
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