March 25, 2011
Dear Irving Families,
As part of our school-wide Reading Initiative this year, we will be introducing “The Ultimate Vocabulary Challenge”. Most of the effort in this program will be initiated by the students. They will nominate words (choosing an Ultimate Word and telling us why it is an important word and why the meaning is one that all Irving Eagles should know). We will be accepting nominations from April 4th-April 8th. Word nominations will be reviewed and chosen by the Reading Committee. Word nominations will be dropped off in the Ultimate Word envelope on the new bulletin board outside the library entrance. The bulletin board will also hold examples of the word in use (from newspaper clippings, in photos, as song lyrics, etc.) to be updated by students. Starting on Monday, April 11th the word of the week will be announced.
When a student’s word is selected to be the Ultimate Word of the Week, the student will read aloud the word, a kid-friendly definition and a sentence using the word on the Monday morning announcements. Teachers will be given a copy of the Ultimate Word of the Week in their mailboxes each Monday morning. Teachers will prominently display the word somewhere in the classroom and encourage students to authentically use the word in reading, writing and speaking. Each time a student in the class uses the word in conversation or in writing, a tally mark will be placed on the vocabulary word poster. Each week classes will submit their total tallies to the reading committee. A school announcement will be made on Monday announcing the classroom totals. We look forward to enriching the vocabulary of all Irving Eagles in this fun and motivating way. Thank you for your support of the “Ultimate Vocabulary Challenge!”
We will have an all school celebration the week of May 16th with a special surprise for each student!
Happy reading,
The Reading Committee
Nomin ate a word.
Choose an Ultimate Vocabulary Word and tell us why you think it is important for the students of Irving School to know what this word means.
____________________________________ (your Ultimate Word)
Why is it important for all Irving students to know the meaning of this word?
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
(your response)
___________________________________________________________________________
(your name and homeroom)
Place your nominations in the envelope by the library entrance. Thank you and good luck!