3rd
Grade News
January 6, 2015
Welcome
back and Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a restful and enjoyable holiday
break. With only 16 more weeks of school left, it’s time to get back to work. We
thank you for your continued support in your child’s education!
Assessments
As you know,
students in third grade are required to take the Georgia Milestones in April.
The Georgia Milestones measures how well students have learned the knowledge
and skills outlined in the state-adopted content standards in language arts,
mathematics, science, and social studies. We have received further information
and will be implementing changes in our assessments to reflect the types of
questions that will be on the Milestones. Students are required to do
constructed response (short answer) and writing is a component of the test in
all subjects.
APEC
By now, we are
sure you’ve heard students use the term APEC. This is an acronym to help
students remember the components when writing an extended response. Here’s a
quick summary for the process of APEC.
A = ANSWER the
question
·
Start
your answer with part of the question.
·
Stick
to only answering the question being asked.
P = Use PROOF from
the text.
·
Evidence
to support this is…
·
On
page it says…
·
The
picture showed…
·
The
character says “quote from the text: and this proves…
E = EXPLAIN/
EXTEND your answer.
·
From
the text, I can INFER that…
·
I
thought this because…
·
The
author is trying to say…
C = CONNECT or
CHECK
·
Make a
text-to-text connection.
·
Make a
text-to-self connection.
·
Make a
text-to-world connection.
·
This
reminds me of…
·
Another
example of this …
·
Use
the inverse operation to check your problem (MATH).
Homework
Keep in mind that
homework is optional. Our school’s policy is practice without penalty. However,
we do try to reward those who complete the math facts practice. Although
reading/reviewing study guides is not mandated, it is beneficial to your
student. Those who review are performing extremely well on assessments.
Retests
Our retest policy
is changing. The way we have been doing retakes was to allow students and
parents to decide retake days. However, it was very disruptive to our daily
schedules, took a lot of class time, and many of the students were not
prepared. Thus, we’re changing our policy. Retakes will take place every two
weeks. On that scheduled date (it will be noted on homework calendars),
students will be allowed to take any retakes they have requested. A couple of
things to remember:
- We still need you to sign and return the test form IF you wish for your child to retake an assessment. We will return it so that you may use it with your child to study.
- The reassessment may or may NOT be the exact same as the initial assessment. The material (standards covered) will be the same but the questions may be asked in a different way. They may require more writing on the part of your student. We were made aware that some students would take the test and fail just so they had the test to study and thereby improve their scores. Learning is our goal not memorization!
- The January RETAKE FRIDAY dates are Friday, January 16th and Friday, January 30th.
- All retests must be taken by Friday, March 4, 2015 in order for us to have time to score and modify grades before the quarter ends.
