Desvernine's Directory

8th grade Reading

January 23, 2012

This is going to be a full week of many interesting and challenging lessons in Reading.

Our class will be starting a new unit titled, Cheer An Athlete.  We will be focusing on:

Decoding - identifying open, closed, and silent e syllables

Word Recognition - spelling high-frequency words correctly

Grammar - possessive nouns, adjectives, and pronouns

                 past participles

                 prepositional phrases and objects of the prepostion

Reading Comprehension - The Complete Athlete

                                       Swifter, Higher, Stronger

Fluency -  Both word and passage fluency

 

January is jumping with activities in reading. 

Let's enjoy them.

Mrs. Desvernine



 







 

8th Reading March 22-26, 2010

Hello Again!

This week we will be busy, busy busy!

Each day will be CRCT practice for our Reading CRCT.

We only have less than 2 weeks of school before these all important exams.  So, every day is important. 

Please come to class ready to learn and most importantly, ASK QUESTIONS. Now is the time for this, not when your in the middle of a test.

Much of our practice will be reading long passages, but by learning how to break down the overwheling task of understanding all the reading, you will be given excellent strategies to become a proficient test-taker!

Here are some of these strategies:

* Read the questions first.  Why not look ahead to see what you will be asked.

* Use context clues.  While reading, when you come to a word you don't know, look at the words and sentences around this unfamiliar word.  Often, you will be able to come up with a good educated guess.

* Eliminate some of the wrong answers immediately.  In a multiple choice question there are times when you don't know the answer, but when you remove the choices that are definitely not it, you have just raised your odds of getting the right answer.

* Take your time and go back to something that you are confused or uncertain about. Usually, there is plenty of time built into the test to allow for just this type of strategy. 

Let's have a great week.

8th Reading week of March 15-19, 2010

Countdown:          3 weeks until Spring Break

                                     and only

                            45 school days remain.

                            Let's make this week a fantastic week!

We will begin with Passage Fluency, so be ready to read your best and make this activity be your personal best.

Our class will be practicing CRCT Reading too.  Last week we read two essays on tornadoes and this week we will be looking at various types of comprehension questions and doing our best to decide on the correct answers.

Let's not forget our unit on HEROES.  We will be reading more and learning more about Unsung Heroes, Legendary Super Heroes, and possibly even a play entitled Those Shoes of Mine by Gary Soto.

Questions to ponder:  What qualities make a hero?  Are all heroes famous?

8th Reading week of March 1-5, 2010

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Don't Miss the SEEF 4th Annual Spaghetti Dinner and Raffle!

Friday, March 5th   6:30pm - 8:30pm.  

Come and see our very own Chef Luigi, many great Raffle and Live auction items!!

Air Tran Tickets, Braves Tickets, Braves autographed baseballs, ITouch, and 60 other items!Tickets on sale March 1st -5th every morning in the Atrium.  $5 if purchased before, $6 at the door.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Both Lassiter and Sprayberry High Schools will have their 8th Grade Parent and Student night on Wednesday, March 3 from 6:30 until 9:00. This evening is a major event for students and parents to familiarize themselves with all of the academic and extra curricular opportunities at these high schools.  Please plan to attend.  For additional information, look at the Lassiter or Sprayberry High School web site.

 This week in class we will be continuing our independent novel reading.  Please remember to bring your books to class each day and also try to read 15-20 minutes each night.

We will be working on our "HEROES" Unit and focusing first on mythical heroes.  Be ready to read and discuss these such heroes as Saturn, Jupiter, Juno, and Pluto.

Fluency is back!  WE will be practicing both reading word lists and passages, so let's get psyched to do our best in our oral reading this week.

You will be asked to review syllables (open, closed, and r-controlled).  Do you remember this from last week?

Here are some new questions:

How many vowel sounds are in a syllable?

What does a closed syllable end with?

What kind of vowel is in a closed syllable?

How is an r-controlled syllable different from a closed syllable?

What does an open syllable end with?

What kind of vowel sound is found in an open syllable?

I look forward to a full week of practicing our reading skills, and I hope we can also do a little CRCT practice too if time allows.

 

8th Reading February 8, 2009

Welcome back.

This week, we will be continuing our silent sustained reading of individual novels each day.  While we will only have about 10 minutes set aside to read, each student is expected to bring their novel to class each day.

**Please read at least 20 minutes each night too.**

We will be completing a diagnostic test for CRCT review.  Please come prepared with plenty of patience this week as we embark on many reading passages that will require concentration.

As a suggestion for a reading strategy, please try to look over questions related to a reading passage first.  Often, this will help you focus on what you can be looking for as you read.

I am looking forward to a great week and hope each of you will be as well!

8th Reading Week of 1/25/10
This is conference week. Students are dismissed early at 2:15.
Students are progressing well in their independent reading. Bringing their novels to class each day gets the students jump-started in silent sustained reading.

We are also completing a second round of reading assessments and each student is meeting with me to review their progress in reading comprehension, fluency, spelling, and decoding.

A wonderful reading strategy is to use post-its while independently reading.  As the student comes across an unfamiliar word, has a question about what he/she is reading, or simply wants to note a passage of reading as interesting by connecting with it, he/she can jot it down on the post -it and stick it to the page.

Students, enjoy your shortened school days this week.  I am looking forward to conferencing with many of you and your parents.

Mrs. Desvernine

8th Reading 12/14/09

Welcom back to our last week of school this year! 

Before we leave for winter break we have a few items to work on this week.

We will be:

• Learning about compound subjects and compound predicates
• Using context clues to identify unknown words
• Reviewing synonyms, antonyms, and attributes
• Working on more fluency words and fluency passages
• Identifying stressed syllables in multi syllable words
• Reviewing contractions and pronouns
• Being introduced to prefixes inter and under
• Diagraming sentences

We have a full week of both reviewing and introducing new reading and writing techniques.

Let's have a great last week of school in 2009!

8th Reading 11/30/09

Welcome back.  Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

This is just a reminder that there are only 3 weeks of school in December, and then we are off on winter break!

This week our class will be completing the comprehension questions from the short story we read a week ago titled, From Rock Art to Graffiti.

We will practice syllable awareness, and dividing unfamiliar multi syllable words into chunks in order to sound them out correctly.

It's time for another fluency assessment as well, so be ready for some more difficult multi syllable words this week.

Can you remember what the doubling rule 1-1-1 is?  If not, pay close attention on Wednesday because we will be reviewing that.

Adjectives and verbs will also be a part of our lessons this week.  We will review comparative and superlative adjectives, and review the verb "be".

It will be a week filled with review as well as new, so let's get started!

8th Language Arts - Persuasive Writing

Download Persuasive articles

Here is some FANTASTIC information for your persuasive essay.

Click on the link above and browse through all the various information. 

Not all topics have articles or information, but we do have quite a few to choose from.

Let us know if you need help, and when you are in the media center next, please thank Mrs. Lawhorn for all her work in compiling this information.

Our goal is to have the persuasive essay completed and turned in by December 11th and we will begin oral presentations on Monday, December 14th.

Happy writing everyone!

8th Reading 11/16/09

Hello,

This week in reading we will be doing more practice with fluency, both with word fluency and passage fluency, so get ready for some timed reading everyone!

Also, we will be reviewing r-controlled vowels again.

There is a "doubling rule" in spelling that we will be practicing, and by the end of the lesson each of you will be able to identify which one syllable words need to have the last consonant doubled when adding a suffix.

Prepostions can be tricky.  Our class will practice how to identify prepostions and catagorize them as prepositions in space, time, or both.

Let's revisit idoms this week too.  Do you know what "cover your tracks", and "get the short end of the stick" really mean? We will discuss it in class.

Finally, we will read a short story titled, "From Rock Art to Graffiti" and I think each of you will be amazed at how the two have a common connection.

Let's have a wonderful week!