| After 3 subsequent voyages, Columbus
died rich and famous but not knowing that he had
discovered lands that few people had imagined
were there. There
are many holidays celebrated in the United
States. Each holiday has an interesting history,
and learning about holidays can help us
understand the country and its people. Happy
Columbus Day!
Student
accountability is a frequent topic of discussion
among stakeholders of a school community. We can
think of three student accountability options.
These options are:
(1) Do not hold
students accountable for the performance of any
standards. In many states, the only standard
student must meet, to graduate is that they
attain a certain number of credits successfully.
(2) Hold students
accountable for standards across all major
subject areas such as reading, writing,
mathematics, science, history, English language
arts and so on.
(3) Hold students
accountable for selected standards in selected
content areas considered to be basic (e.g.
reading, writing and mathematics).
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Please
tell us what you think about the
3 options by checking one of the
following. We will share the
results of this survey in our
next issue of the newsletter.
Consider
the following two teaching
methods in English Language Arts.
Mr. Brown hands out a worksheet
exercise to his first grade
students on circling words that
contain the same "ch"
sound. This is an explicit
exercise
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on phonics
or basic skills instruction in
reading. Mrs. Kato reads to the
class and asks her first graders
to write about the topic after
the reading. Mrs. Kato was using
the whole language approach to
teaching reading. Which is a
better method of teaching reading
to children? Research says that a
combination of the two methods or
balanced instruction may be the
most effective way to teach the
beginning reader. This balanced
instruction involves teaching the
relationship between letters and
sounds in a systematic fashion,
and at the same time, children
are being read to and reading
interesting stories and writing
at the same time. Researchers
claim that the combination method
presents the best of both worlds
in teaching reading. 
In
1995, a group of students found
some deformed frogs in the
Minnesota wetland. As they looked
more carefully, these frogs had
extra or missing body parts.
Scientists are concerned about
the problem because it might not
just be a frog problem. It could
be a serious world wide
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