FAQs

This page contains answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs)


 * 1) My child has an appointment and will be late/absent for the day. What should I do?
 * 2) We're going on vacation, can you send home any work my child will miss?
 * 3) How much homework should my child be doing?
 * 4) What is your contact information?
 * 5) Why is/isn't my child asking for my signature?
 * 6) How was this evaluated?
 * 7) Who or what is CASI?
 * 8) My child has a tutor, which unit will they be working on next? A look at my Long Range Plans for Math.
 * 9) Why are Math Journal responses important and what does Assessment of Learning mean?
 * 10) Math has changed so much since I was in school are basic math facts still useful?

Levels of Achievement vs. Letter Grades

My child has an appointment and will be late/absent for the day. What should I do?
Please call and let the office (613-825-1224) know about any planned absences or lateness, as this reduces the number of phone calls that they must make first thing in the morning and allows them to properly maintain attendance records. A note in your child's agenda a day or two ahead is also appreciated.

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We're going on vacation, can you send home any work my child will miss?
Unfortunately, the majority of our learning does not happen on pieces of paper. When we do complete worksheets, they are often open-ended and this tends to mean that they require some explanation (such as the lesson in which students participate prior to starting the work). It is, therefore, difficult to send work home ahead of time. Rather, students going away should bring a number of books with them so that they can continue to read every night. They are also encouraged to keep a journal of their trip and share it with the class when they return. At that point, any missed work that can be sent home will be.

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How much homework should my child be doing?
The work load will vary throughout the year, but generally children are encouraged to do approximately 10 minutes of homework per scholastic year each night. That means that in grade 3, students should be doing roughly 30 minutes of homework, grade 4 students 40 minutes, grade 5 students 50 minutes and so on. However, children come to us with different abilities, attitudes and schedules so if a student cannot meet a homework deadline, they are expected to have a parent send a note, acknowledging the due date, to request an extension. NOTE: All homework and due dates are posted on the "homework board". Students are expected to copy daily work such as math (page numbers and questions) into their agendas.

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What is your contact information?
Communication is the key to success!

Please do not hesitate to contact me at school if you have any questions, concerns or //celebrations.//

Writing a note in your child's agenda is the easiest way to get a hold of me as I look at the student’s agendas every day. If you would rather, you can call me at the school 613.825.1224 and leave a message. While I try to check my messages every day, I am rarely at the phone, so while I may listen to your message, please be advised that it could be a couple of days before I have the opportunity to respond to you. Just a kind reminder that “popping in” to speak to me, especially in the morning, is not convenient. I love to meet with you personally, but please make an appointment with me if you would like to meet face to face. You can also send me an email, which I check regularly - the format for our Board is firstname.lastname@ocdsb.ca

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Why is/isn't my child asking for my signature?
Students are expected to show their parents, and have signed, all evaluated work. If you aren't seeing anything, please let me know! There should be no surprises when you receive your child's reports.

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How was this evaluated?
In accordance with the Revised Ontario Language and Math Curriculum documents, I will occasionally evaluate smaller assignments without a separate rubric sheet, using the four criteria set out in the Achievement Chart:


 * KNOWLEDGE & UNDERSTANDING**: subject-specific content acquired in each grade (knowledge), and the comprehension of its meaning and significance (understanding)


 * THINKING**: the use of critical and creative thinking skills and/or processes


 * COMMUNICATION**: the conveying of meaning through various forms


 * APPLICATION**: the use of knowledge and skills to make connections within and between various contexts

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Who or what is CASI?
====**C**omprehension **A**ttitude **S**trategies **I**nterests (CASI) is a reading comprehension assessment tool used to diagnose student strengths and learning needs relating to the Ontario reading expectations and achievement chart categories.====

Each CASI test, no matter the grade or story, is exactly the same. __Question 1__: **Summarize** (Students are to re-tell the story with a beginning, middle and end in their own words) __Question 2__: **Main Idea** (Students should answer WHY the author would want to write the text. What does the author want the reader to know?) __Question 3__: **Conventions** (4 multiple choice questions concerning grammar, punctuation, word usage) __Question 4/5__: **Text Forms and Text Features** (features – glossary, headings, titles, different fonts, pictures, subtitles, dialogue...forms – narrative, recount, procedure, report, explanation, persuasive) __Question 6__: **Comprehension** (a deeper understanding of the meaning and message of the story) __Question 7__: **Information from the Passages and Your Own Ideas** (Students make connections, relating what is read to something on a personal level [text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world]. What text, video, movie, thing you have experienced or thing that has gone on in the world does the text remind you of?) __Question 8__: **Identifying Point of View** (Perspective...everyone has a different point of view. Think about the author’s point of view or opinion).

//**How can you help your child(ren) prepare? **//
 * You can ask thought provoking questions of your child while your child is reading any text.
 * Ask for your child's opinion on events your family experiences or sees on the news.
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Encourage your child to make connections when he/she sees something on TV or watches a movie, hears a new song, reads a book, has a new experience. What do these things REMIND you of?
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">READ often. It is important for your child to see YOU read! It gives reading value. You might be reading the paper or the Internet, a novel or magazine, or the phone book! Read with your child or read the same book and discuss it (a book club at home). READ, READ and encourage your child to READ.

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My child has a tutor, which unit will they be working on next? A look at my Long Range Plans for Math.
Please note that while it is my intention to progress through math in the following order, plans may need to be altered depending on the needs of my students.

September - Addition, Subtraction, and Numeration (Place Value)

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Why are Math Journal responses important and what does Assessment of Learning mean?
The main purpose of Assessment of Learning is to enable me (the teacher) to determine whether all students have acquired the most essential knowledge and skills contained in a given lesson, a series of lessons, or a whole chapter. As with all assessment opportunities, the most important purpose is to improve student understanding: Math Journal Questions (or Key Assessment Questions) also provide excellent opportunities for assessment for feedback.

But while the most important purpose for assessment is to promote student learning, it is essential to periodically determine how well students are achieving the stated goals of their mathematics program. Doing so involves looking at all the assessment data that has been gathered during the assessment of learning process and evaluating that data according to provincial standards. Evaluation informs students, parents, and teachers about a student’s current level of achievement. This information is used to identify strengths and areas needing improvement. A summary of the evaluation must then be translated into report card grades and comments for each student. When determining report card grades, teachers need to feel confident that they have gathered a sufficient sample of evidence of learning to be confident that their report card grades and comments are a valid and reliable representation of achievement at that point in time. Relying solely on data collected from a Chapter Test does not provide a balanced sample of assessment data.

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Math has changed so much since I was in school are basic math facts still useful?

 * YES!!!** Educators and cognitive scientists agree that the ability to recall basic math facts fluently is necessary for students to attain higher-order math skills. Studies in this area have found that lack of math fact retrieval can impede participation in math class discussions, successful mathematics problem-solving, and even the development of everyday life skills. And rapid math-fact retrieval has been shown to be a strong predictor of performance on mathematics achievement tests. For these reasons, it is very important that students continue to practice their basic math facts (i.e., quick addition, subtraction, division and - especially - the times tables). As we progress through the various strands of the Math Curriculum, it becomes evident that some students are slowed down by an inability to perform quick math calculations, rather than a failure to understand the current concept. If a student constantly has to compute the answers to basic facts, less of that student’s thinking capacity can be devoted to higher level concepts than a student who can effortlessly recall the answers to basic facts.

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Levels of Achievement vs. Letter Grades Sometimes I will send home evaluations or rubrics based on the four levels of achievement and at other times the evaluations will be based on letter grades. Click on the file below to see the correlation. . Back to Questions