Dear Families,

March is National Reading month! Families can play an role in helping children become strong, enthusiastic readers. English was a new language for my mother and I’d fall asleep every night telling her about the books I'd read in English.

Some suggestions for supporting your child:

• Encourage your child to read all kinds of things: magazine articles, advertisements, stories, etc.
• Even if your child is reading in English, discussing what he's reading in your home language will help him "make sense." Have him tell you what books he's read and what they were about. Ask why they were interesting (or not!) and how they relate to his life.
• As your child reads, encourage her to use all the clues available to "make sense": discuss headlines, pictures, captions, charts, tables, and graphs.
• Share stories, tales from your culture, or “stories” out of history with your children. Storytelling, in any language, can help children understand how stories develop, making connections across listening, speaking, reading and writing. In celebration of Women’s History month, a suggestion is to talk to your children about women who have shaped their lives. My mother tells stories of raising me and my two sisters in America and how each of us inspired her to overcome her fears. These stories have shaped who I am today.

Parent-teacher conferences are Thursday, March 3rd. When I was young, my older sister went to all my parent-teacher conferences because my mother’s English was limited. As principal, I want ensure that at Sunset Park School you feel comfortable communicating with our staff no matter what language you speak. Interpreters will be available in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Spanish, and interpretation will be available by phone in all languages.

Report cards will be given out at parent-teacher conferences. When you meet with your child's teacher, you'll go over the report card together. I want you to know that our report cards are graded to reflect your child’s progress towards meeting the Common Core learning standards for the end of the year.

• A "4" indicates that your child has already exceeded the end-of-year standard.
• A "3" indicates that your child is "proficient," has met the end-of-year standard.
• A "2" indicates that your child is "below," has not yet met the end-of-year standard.
• A "1" indicates that your child is "well below" and may not be on track to meet the standard by the end of the school l year.

You should expect your child to be moving toward meeting end-of-year standards ("2"), but you should not necessarily expect your child to have met them yet ("3") . If your child receives "2s," he or she may well be on track to meet standards by the end of the year; be sure to ask your child's teacher for more information.

All the best,

Jaela Kim, Sunset Park School Principal