Title I Newsletters

Hyannis West Elementary is a school-wide Title I school. That means we receive federal funds to provide instruction to students in need of extra support. We use our Title I funds to hire additional reading and math teachers and purchase supplemental instructional materials. Some students work with a reading or math teacher within their classroom. Other students meet in small groups outside of the classroom for instruction that targets their specific needs. 

Through a generous grant from the Rotary Club of Hyannis and our Title I program, we are able to purchase books to give to our students. Three times a year, students select a new book to keep and members of the community visit classrooms to read to the students. We will have our second “Reading Palooza” on March 6, 2024. If you would like to volunteer to help students select a new book or read aloud in a classroom, please register to volunteer here. 

The Barnstable Elementary Schools are participating in a 2.5 year GLEAM grant which stands for “Growing Literacy Equity Across Massachusetts.” The Gleam Team is a group of leaders and educators from each school that meets regularly to evaluate, pilot, select and implement high quality instructional literacy materials for Barnstable. Gleam Team members from Hyannis West include Caitlin Corrieri, Reading Interventionist, Kathi Amato, Principal, and Melissa Bohannan, second grade teacher. After researching multiple curriculums, the Gleam Team decided to pilot Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) and EL Education, both which are based on the Science of Reading. Piloting of these programs will take place in designated classrooms between January 22, 2024, and March 27, 2024. At the conclusion of the pilot, surveys will be conducted to determine which curriculum was most effective for the elementary students of Barnstable. For more information, please visit the Barnstable Public Schools Website. 

Please continue to read the weekly Title I decodable stories that are sent home and return them to school each day in your child’s backpack. TIPS: 

1. Encourage your child to read and write everyday.

2. Listen to your child read aloud.

3. Read aloud to your child.

4. Get free ebooks on your phone from the public library. 

5. Visit Reading Rockets website.

Shelly Keating, Reading Teacher

Caitlin Corrieri, Reading Interventionist

Melissa Kennelly, Reading Interventionist

Barbara Burke, Reading Interventionist

MATH

Students in grade 3 are learning about place value in block 1 The T-Shirt Factory. Place value is the value that a digit has based on its position within a number (e.g. the digit 5 in 56 is valued at 50 because it is in the tens column)

Third graders are learning

• Skip count forward and backward by 10’s (e.g 47,57,67)
• Determine how many tens are in two and three digit numbers 
• Add multiple 2-digit numbers

You can support your child at home by

• Use this online Place Value Cards app to build numbers based on place value
• Quiz your child with questions like "How many tens are in the number 64?" or "How many hundreds are in the number 932?"

READING 

In Unit 2, Nature’s Balance, third graders will explore what happens when nature loses its balance as they read about Earth’s ecosystems. 

Third graders will be learning to

• Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding, using information gained from reading as evidence.
• Determine the main idea and retell key details from text
• Explain how details support the main idea
• Describe cause and effect relationships
• Compare and contrast the most important ideas in two texts on the same topic

You can support your child at home by

• Encourage your child to read for at least 20 minutes each night
• Talk with your child about what they have read; ask them to retell the story or something that they have learned from reading
• Create a quiet place for your child to do his/her homework and set a routine for completing homework

MATH

Students in grade 2 are working on finishing up Measuring for the Art Show , learning how to measure items accurately using cubes and will soon begin Block 2 Time & Money.

Second graders are learning     

• How to tell time using an analog clock
• How to determine how much time has elapsed (e.g. From 10:15 - 10:45, 30 minutes has passed)
• To use skip counting by 5’s and 10’s as a way to count money (e.g. if you have 4 nickels, you can skip count by 5s to determine the total value)

You can support your child at home by

• Asking your child what time it is on an analog clock
• Asking your child, “What time will it be in 30 minutes?”
• Giving your child paper money and coins to count

READING

In Unit I of our reading program, Happy to Help third graders read and discussed the many ways people help each other every day. In Unit 2, Staying Alive, second graders will be learning about what it takes to survive as they read about animal animal adaptations.

Second graders will learn about

• Asking and answering who, what, when, where, why and how questions to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text
• Know and use text features (captions, bold print, headings, glossary, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text efficiently
• Explain how specific images help us better understand and clarify the meaning of a text

You can support your child at home by

• Read books about animals and encourage your child to ask and answer questions about the book
• Watch National Geographic Animal Videos to learn more about how animals survive
• Learn about phonemic awareness which, an important reading skill, and try an activity

MATH

In Block 1, Organizing and Collecting, children are learning how to use various counting strategies such as counting by 5’s or 10,s `to group large quantities of items.

• Counting objects
• Skip-counting by 5 and 10  (5,10,15,20 or 10,20,30,40)
• Counting on and counting backward from any number
• Making 5 and making 10 ( 2+3=5, 4+1=5, etc.)
• How to count backward from a given number
• About the relationship between addition and subtraction (e.g. If 7+3=10, then 10-7=3)
• How to use their doubles facts (8+8=16) to help them with an equation that contains a near double (if 8+8=16, then 8+7=15)

You can support your child at home by

• Giving them a number less than 30 to count backward from
• Quizzing your child on their doubles facts (e.g. What is 8+8?)
• Quizzing your child on their near doubles facts (e.g. If 6+6=12, then what is 6+7?)

READING

In unit I of our reading program, students engaged in listening, speaking, reading and writing about families. Soon, they will be asking the question “When is something alive?” as they read and learn about how plants and animals move, eat and grow in Unit 2, Shoot for the Sun.

First graders are learning 

• How to use text features (pictures, captions, headings, and glossary) to better understand a book
• How to retell a story including key details and understand main idea or message
• How match sounds to letters to read words

You can support your child at home by

• Read and talk about books together
• Learn about phonemic awareness, an important pre reading skill, and try an activity that helps children develop phonemic awareness

MATH 

Kindergarten students are learning to count objects and read and write numbers.

Children are learning about

• Counting forwards & backwards from 10
• Identifying numbers from 0-20
• How to represent a number with the correct amount of items

You can support your child at home by

• Have your child count how many steps they take within a certain distance
• Point to various numbers & ask your child to tell you what number that is
• Give your child blocks, noodles, straws, etc. to count

READING 

 In unit 1 of our reading program, Step into School,  kindergarten is learning about what happens at school.  Soon they will begin unit 2 My Family and Me and ask the question “What do families do together?”

Children are learning about

• The parts of a book (cover, title, author, illustrator, pictures, words)
• Identifying characters, setting and events in a story 
• How to retell story
• How to ask and answering questions about a book
• Letter names and sounds and letter formation

You can support your child at home by

• Read and talk about books together
• Keep crayons, markers and pencils at home and encourage your child to draw and write letters. 
• Learn about phonemic awareness, an important early reading skill, and try an activity with your child