The Maple Messenger

March Edition

Principal's Corner

Happy Spring! All of us here at Maple are looking forward to warmer weather! The students and staff alike are enjoying being outside!

For the next few months, Maple will be featuring one of our areas of curriculum. This month, our spotlight focuses on our phonics program, Fundations. Phonics is an integral part of learning to read.

Fundations: Building a Foundation for Reading and Spelling

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Fundations is explicitly taught to the whole classroom.

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Students practice rules and lessons learned in whole group and small group.

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Letter tiles, letter cards, virtual letter cards, etc., are all used to reinforce the phonics skills. This program is a hands on and visual program.

What is Fundations?

Tier 1 implementation of Fundations® occurs in a whole-class, general education setting as one part of the core language arts instruction.

As a supplemental program, Fundations emphasizes phonemic awareness, phonics-word study, fluency, vocabulary, handwriting, and spelling, providing all students with the strongest possible start in mastering foundational reading, spelling, and handwriting skills. Although it includes comprehension strategies, it must be combined with a core/literature-based language-arts program for an integrated and very comprehensive approach to reading and spelling.

Implementation of Fundations

Standard lesson is taught to the whole class: Fundations is delivered as a intervention program to all students as well.
Instruction occurs in the general education classroom by the regular classroom teacher.
Instruction is delivered for at least 20 minutes per day.
The lesson is flexible in that teachers select specific words to teach based upon the needs of the students in their classrooms.
Specific guidelines are provided to address the needs of:
- Advanced students
- English language learners
- Struggling students who may need differentiated support

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Our younger students practice letter formations as well as identification and sounds.

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Hands on letter tiles provide kinesthetic learning of phonics skills.

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Students are able to lead the lesson to peers and teach their classmates.

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Classrooms have visual charts and presentations up to assist students with recall of sounds and letters.

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Students learn phonics rules and skills to assist them in navigating the English language.

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Students get opportunities to lead lessons and demonstrate their phonics skills.

What is your child's learning style?

Every child has a unique learning style. Teachers and parents can help their children succeed in school by understanding their learning styles.

Fun Around Maple

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Maple students use any extra time to READ!!!

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Mrs. Hofer's character day characters!

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Maci Hutzel has earned 50 AR points this year and earned lunch with a friend and her teachers! Congratulations!

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Mrs. Acton and Mrs. Wallace's class hatched baby chicks this month. The excitement was real!!!

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Our fluffy baby chicks!

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Miss Taylor was granted the Eastern Illini Electric Cooperative grant. She is utilizing the funds to buy science kits for her classroom. Congratulations!