Weekly Homework and Testing Procedures
Weekly Homework and Testing
Every Monday a homework packet is handed out. On the front of the packet is a list of the days of the week with the homework assignment. I have an example of a homework front page. Just click on the link to view it.
The homework concept is the same each week. There is a spelling activity for the current unit each day of the week. At the end of the week there is a spelling test. Homework is not meant to be an all night thing, It should take them approximately 15 minutes. The cursive writing may take a little longer, but will get easier and quicker to do as the year goes by.
Spelling:
We go over the words on Monday when I pass out the packet. Their homework is their practice. The spelling words are incorporated into a variety of everyday activities; vocabulary, alphabetical order, and cursive writing.
Reading and Grammar Tests:
Each week we read a variety of stories. Most stories come from our Storyworks magazines. The stories cover specific genres and reading comprehension skills. In a normal week we test on the particular story and skills on Friday. Some of the StoryWorks tests have a TDA (Text Dependent Analyses) question. Students must answer the questions in their own words and pull information from the story to back up their answer. I teach the RACE method to help them answer the questions correctly. Below is a link to a document that explains and gives an example of the RACE method.
Writing Assignments:
We begin the year out with paragraph writing. We also do various small writings throughout the year. They are usually activities that go with a specific genre or story we are doing. We have 3 big essay writings throughout the year. They are modeled and completed in class. We also do RACE strategy writings as explained above. Students will only bring writing assignments home if they missed several days and need to do it for homework to get back on track.