Home Reading & Physical Fitness Program
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This year we are revamping our home reading program. As you know, EGUSD
requires 6th graders to complete 30 minutes of reading a day. This reading
is above and beyond the typical reading necessary to complete assignments.
It is our goal to make this not seem like a chore to parents and students.
Yes, there must be accountability, but we don’t want it to foster resentment
towards reading nor an “ugh” feeling when a student picks up a book. Thus,
we are going to change things up. We know this is probably nothing like you
have done before- so we hope you will look to it with a bit of excitement.
We ask that you make a commitment to your selves and your child to set aside
a time and space for 15 minutes of family reading/discussing. Make it what
works for you. It has been proven that the more involved a child is in
reading WITH their family, the stronger speaking, reading, comprehension,
writing, and socialization skills that child will have as an adult.
Parents and students will track this weekly in student agendas. A parent
signature will be required and a grade will not be earned w/out proper
tracking.
We are also adding a Physical education component to our home requests. We
are encouraging EVERY family to get out and get physical in some way-
TOGETHER. We know that we have some students who are active in sports.
However, more often than not, it seems that we are hearing on the news that
so many children are at risk of diabetes, children are out of shape,
children are unhealthy, children are overweight, etc. We would like to
challenge our families to help stop this cycle now by creating ONE new
family fitness change. Maybe your family decides to go for a walk every
evening after dinner, maybe you play Frisbee, go to a park, hit golf balls,
maybe even start walking to school with neighboring families (now wouldn’t
that be wonderful), something/anything that is up and moving together. We
are only asking for a 15 minutes per day commitment.
The amazing thing is that experts say that if you do something for 21
straight days-it becomes a habit. What better habits could you look for
than ones that bring your family closer together and hold open lines of
parent/child communication as you and your child prepare for that wonderful
time of “teenage bliss?”