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•  We are proud of our students in Groton.  We have noticed a huge increase in reading awareness because of the morning probes that we do each morning.  Ask any student what their magic number might be.  Each child should have a pretty good idea of what fluency level each student should be at.  Speed increases with age.  First grade begins with 67 words per minute.  Fifth grade readers should be at 157 words per minute.
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• Looking for a fun way to improve your youngster's concentration? Try this quick game. The first player makes one motion, like clapping or spinning around. The second person copies him and adds another movement. Continue adding new motions until someone forgets the sequence. The last player to get it right starts a new game.  Developing memory skills can be lots of fun.  Memory is an important part of reading and this simple game can help develop reading skills.
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• Grades kindergarten through fifth are working hard to improve fluency in preparation for DIBELS testing in May.  There are many tricks to becoming a faster reader.  One way is to whisper read.  To our surprise, it works.  We think is might be the smaller amount of energy that it takes to read aloud but also the child isn't heard as well which can give confidence to oneself.  Kindergarten is very good at CVC words. CVC means consonant, vowel, consonant like HAT or BUS.  They do a wonderful job of sounding and recoding words.
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•  For older children, here is a good study tip that we use at school.  When your
• Child has a chapter to study, have him/her "preview" it to increase understanding.  He/she should glance over headings, graphics, and photos and go to the glossary to look up boldfaced words.  If he/she finds a section hard to grasp, he could read a picture book on the topic. Typing the topic in a search engine helps as well.  An image search in Google can give great visuals but always preview first by an adult and then find the information on the internet together as a team.
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• Elementary Music - Lea Kooiman
• Greetings from the Elementary Music Room!
• We've been keeping very busy! The 1^st graders have been working on steady beat and rhythm. Both classes of 1^st grade are able to identify and describe steady beat verses rhythm. For rhythms, they can identify quarter and eighth notes as well as perform them. We've also spent some time composing and performing our own rhythms in class.
•  2^nd graders are gaining skills in identifying notes and playing rhythms. We've

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