End of Year!

Dearest Families,
We can't believe the year has come to an end! It seems like we were just starting! Thank you for a wonderful year. This is really a fun group of kids. We enjoyed working with them and are so proud of their hard work this year. Thank you for all of your help and support this year. It makes Normandale such an incredible place to teach.
Finally, thanks for the very generous class gifts! We really appreciate it! WOW!
We just wanted to give you a couple of notes on report cards, as we usually do. This trimester was assessed at a true end-of-third-grade level. That is amazing progress, given that first trimester is assessed at a mid-second grade level!
* The students read aloud a benchmark text for fluency and accuracy. It is a text on the Native American chief, Sequoyah, and there are many unfamiliar words. We were looking for 90 words per minute for fluency, as opposed to the usual 100. If your child scored a 2 in this area and you didn't hear from me, he/she was in the 70-80 word per minute range and will be in great shape with some summer reading for pleasure.
* The comprehension score came from a variety of sources throughout the trimester and included literal and inferential reasoning.
* The writing scores are a combination of their narrative projects, a narrative assessment piece and the descriptive writing for Washington, D.C. We have to deactivate the blog for the summer. Please print anything your child would like to keep. We had printer and paper issues this week that kept us from printing at school. Sorry!
* The daily spelling score was based on the use of high frequency words in a variety of writing samples.
* The score for “chooses appropriate independent reading material” indicates a student’s ability to engage in meaningful silent reading, rather than socializing.
We hope this helps answer any questions about your child's report card. Amby will be at school on Monday. Lynnea will be on the Back to Back trip with the fifth graders in France. Please call or e-mail if you have any other questions. Also, there are a couple of monument projects here if you would like those back.
Have a wonderful summer! They have worked so hard and are ready for a break!
Fondly,
Amby and Lynnea