Dear Parents,

This year the children at Simon Lake will be reading as many books as they can. We will have children reading poetry, biographies, magazines, fiction and non-fiction just to name a few. We are a school dedicated to Reader’s Workshop and especially to INDEPENDENT READING. In each classroom the children will be reading on a daily basis for at least 50 Minutes. Independent Reading time is broken down into two sessions, twenty minutes first thing in the morning, and another 20-40 minutes during Reader’s Workshop. Your child can read that long! So, we want to keep up this reading stamina and also have the children reading at home . And here is why:

•If your child reads 40 minutes/day- they will have read 2,357,000 words/year and more than likely will be in the 90th Achievement Percentile.

•If your child reads 12 minutes/day- they will have read 601,000 words/year and more than likely will be in the 50th Achievement Percentile.

•If your child reads 1 minute/day- they will have read 51,000 words/year and more than likely will be in the 10th Achievement Percentile. (Adapted from Anderson, Wilson and Fielding)

So the results are in… the more you read the better the reader and the higher the achievement level for your child. Please support your child in this endeavor. Help them hold to their reading. You can borrow, buy, use the Milford Public Library, go to tag sales to get more books.

SIMON LAKE STAFF