The students are all feeling really good about the reading portion of the ARMT
and I know in checking with other teachers that they worked hard and we should be seeing our usual high scores. Most students did not take the full amount of time given–80 minutes and some were finished in as little as 20 minutes including writing 3 open ended answer paragraphs.
I do recommend reading using audio books on a regular basis, perhaps 20 minutes 4 times a week this summer. The reasons for this are plentiful. I only have room for a few here. First, it will help them to find authors and genres that they like. Secondly it will help them to build concentration time, eye muscle speed and word recognition so that next year’s reading in science, social studies and language arts will not be as difficult to handle as it will be without practice. Thirdly, afterschool activities generally increase in the 7th grade making upper level reading and study skills a must. Most of the tutoring I do with older students involves study skills and time management as much as phonics and comprehension.
On Thursday and Friday of this week we will be working on our tech steps. We are writing Haikus and preparing power points about the travel destinations they studied with Ms. Kesslar.We will be reading fiction and non-fiction passages about 1963 Birmingham for the remainder of the year. Our ARMT reviews have covered our benchmarks for this 9 weeks and we do not have a seperate benchmark.
Students can peruse Destiny, our media center’s search engine, for ideas on books to read whether they are checking out books from the Helena library or purchasing a book to own.