parent letter

Dear Parents,


I have been noticing that Ana has been struggling with some aspects of her reading and writing and I wanted to share these struggles with you so that you can be helping her at home and so that together we can come up with an action plan to help her improve in these vital areas.
In terms of reading, I have noticed that Ana struggles with decoding multisyllabic words and with fluency. If a word is unfamiliar, she struggles with reading figuring out what the word means. She also often skips words or repeats words when she is reading. To help her with decoding words, I propose that she is taught a procedure for decoding multisyllabic words. She will be taught to remove the prefixes and suffixes to indentify the root word and brainstorm lists of words for different root word. These activities will help Ana become more confident and successful when she tries to decode multisyllabic words. To help her with her fluency, I will work to make sure that she is reading books that are level appropriate for her. I will also encourage her to practice reading more, so she becomes more used to the process. Some strategies that I will teach her are: reading the text quietly before reading it aloud, reading familiar texts and using choral reading in small groups.
In terms of her writing I have noticed that she struggles with being too dependent on the teacher’s approval. She is constantly checking her work with the teacher and can’t go on until she has the teacher’s approval of her work. Also, her compositions often lack focus. Her ideas are not succinct and often move in many different directions. To help her with being too dependent on the teacher’s approval, I will encourage her to check her work with a classmate before she comes to the teacher. I will also set up specific times when she can come talk to me about her work when she needs to. To help Ana focus her ideas, I will have her highlight the sentences in her writing drafts that pertain to the topic and cut the sentences that do not connect to the topic. When I’m working with her individually, I will show her examples or unfocused writing and have her revise them so she gets used to revising her own papers in this way.
Ana is a great student who is very motivated to do good work. I know that if we work together to help her is some areas she struggles with, she will start excelling as a reader and writer. I look forward to the progress she will make!

Sincerely,
Miss Allie Talaski