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News & Announcements

Parents and Caregivers,

Parents and Caregivers,

In collaboration with your school leaders and teachers, we are eager to support your children’s learning in and out of school. We at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University recognize that you are working tirelessly to support your child’s reading and writing, and we want to help. To that end, we have created free offerings for families. We hope these will bring more joy into home literacy learning. We will be adding to these regularly; check this page for updates and additions! One note - our first office hours for families are this Wednesday, December 16th and Thursday, December 17th, both from 8-9 pm. Here’s what we have overall to support you:

Family Videos
In these family videos—each less than ten minutes—we draw on a combination of research, classroom experience, and educator knowledge to help you support young people with their reading and writing. Some of these videos show you games to play at home while others help you support phonics, avid reading, writing, study skills, research, vocabulary, or abstract thinking. We’ll add to this collection regularly. You can access these collections via our YouTube Channel or Padlets: Pr-K-2nd Grade, Grades 3-5, Grades 6-9.

Book Collections
Want help finding some books your child will love to read? We’ve curated book collections of all-time and brand-new favorites, designed to hook readers young and old. We have lists for fantasy novels and graphic novels, for high interest series, and even a collection of courses of study for your teen readers. Find these collections here.

Office Hours for Parents and Caregivers: Ask a Literacy Expert
Have questions about your child’s reading or writing? Talk over Zoom with Lucy Calkins and experienced Reading and Writing Project faculty. These office hours are free and open to all, on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Registration information is found here.

-Grades Pre-K-2 Families: Wednesdays 8-9 PM EST
Dates: December 16, January 6, January 13, January 20 (with more to come!)
-Grades 3-9 Families: Thursdays 8-9 PM EST
Dates: December 17, January 7, January 14, January 21 (with more to come!)

You might…
Check in about your child’s literacy development.
Ask what you can do (and should not do) to support your child at home with particular literacy issues, or in general as reader and writer.
Inquire about what to expect across developmental stages in reading, writing or language acquisition, early to later years.

Parent and Caregiver Workshop Days (free, synchronous, virtual)
If you’d like to learn more about ways to support your child’s literacy education at home, or learn more about what or how they are learning in school, or how to best engage in home literacy projects, consider attending part or all of our virtual workshop days for parents. These free days are typically about 3 hours, composed of a series of 15-minute small-group presentations. Parents and caregivers can choose the workshops that match their needs and are invited to come for one workshop or many. These sessions are not recorded; the days are live. Registration information will be posted here.
Virtual schedule information

Virtual schedule information

November 6, 2020
Dear Parents and Guardians,
On behalf of the Huber Street School faculty and staff, I would like to first thank all our families in advance for your continued cooperation and understanding as we work together to navigate this new normal. As Superintendent Montesano shared on Friday, our district will be moving to a full virtual learning platform beginning November 9th. Students will continue to follow the four hour schedule on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Teachers will continue to schedule small group sessions with students from 1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. on those days. Students must attend the mandatory small group meeting on their designated day(s). Please see below the Elementary virtual schedule containing afternoon small group sessions. Wednesday will remain unchanged and will continue to be a one session day.
Please see the daily schedule on the next page.
Since we will be asking our students to log on for not only the four hour virtual school day, but also on their designated afternoon small group session you may see teachers providing both synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities in order to be mindful of the extended screen time this type of school day requires.
Our priority will always be to provide safe, high quality educational learning opportunities that address the social, emotional, and academic needs of our students. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Robert Valente
Robert Valente, Principal
Huber Street School
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