Family Literacy Guide for Grades K-5 Distance Learning 2020-2021 - English

Dear Parent or Guardian of children in Grades K-5,

We hope your child’s virtual school year has gotten off to a great start.  Hartford Public Schools is glad to provide this Family Literacy Guide for Distance Learning at home.  In this document you will find information on what to expect regarding literacy instructional schedules, resources for accessing digital texts for your child, as well as guidance for how to support your child with the i-Ready at home.

Literacy Schedules

You can expect the following areas of literacy instruction delivered to your student during remote learning at home:

Grades K-2 (70 min)

Grade 3 (70 min)

Grades 4 & 5 (70 min)

i-Ready

i-Ready is an online program for reading that will help your child’s teacher(s) determine your child’s needs, personalize their learning, and monitor progress throughout the school year. i-Ready allows your teacher(s) to meet your child exactly where they are and provides data to increase your child’s learning gains. i-Ready consists of two parts: Diagnostic and Instruction. For more information about i-Ready visit the i-Ready Family Center.

i-Ready Diagnostic

The i-Ready Diagnostic is an adaptive assessment that adjusts its questions to suit your child’s needs. Each item a student sees is individualized based on their answer to the previous question. For example, a series of correct answers will result in slightly harder questions, while a series of incorrect answers will yield slightly easier questions.

The i-Ready Diagnostic will be given to all students in Grades K-5 three times a year.  Even students working virtually at home will be required to take the i-Ready Diagnostic assessment.

For students taking the diagnostic at home it is critical that families allow children to complete the assessment on their own.  Although it may be tempting to assist your child on the test it is very important to refrain from doing so. We get it—the i-Ready test is hard. But this test is not for a grade. It helps teachers give your child the best instruction possible.

Think of it this way—would you help your child with a vision test?  No, because hints won’t help the eye doctor help them. With i-Ready, hints on the test now could negatively impact your child’s instruction later.

Parkville Community School and the HPS Literacy Department made a “Are you ready for the i-Ready Diagnostic?” video to pump students up to do their best on the diagnostic. The mascot Snarg from i-Ready joined them in the video as well!

i-Ready Instruction

i-Ready Instruction provides students with lessons based on their individual skill level and needs, so your child can learn at a pace that is just right for them. These lessons are fun and interactive to keep your child engaged as they learn.

Giving the i-Ready Diagnostic at home

Please visit Family Support for At-Home Assessment for information about testing at home.

Logging into Clever and accessing iReady

Students may use the following information to log into Clever to access the i-Ready application:

Clever:

https://clever.com/in/hartford

K-2 Students

Username: Student ID Number
Password: Student ID Number

3-5 Students 

Username: Student ID Number
Password: Student Date of Birth (YYYYMMDD)

Once in Clever, students should have direct access to iReady through the iReady App.

Students are expected to complete the lessons in “My Path”.  These will appear on the right-hand side on the screen in green.  See below.

Families may check the progress of students with the “My Progress” Tab. See Below

Digital Resources

To access the following resources, login to Clever and then use the links on the homepage.

Clever – Clever is a secure pipeline between your district’s data and the learning applications that you and your students use. Remote Access via the URL https://clever.com/in/hartford/

K-2 Students

Username: Student ID Number

Password: Student ID Number

3-5 Students

Username: Student ID Number

Password: Student Date of Birth (YYYYMMDD)

****************************************************************

The following HPS approved resources are available through Clever

World Book Online – great source for initial research on a huge array of topics; primary and secondary source content available via “advanced search.”

Epic – Epic is Free access to thousands of high-quality books, loved by millions of kids grades 6 and under. You may access Epic at https://www.getepic.com/.  Epic Help Center is available to help new users.  (See Teachers if a class code is available)

i-Ready- an interactive online learning environment designed to assess students and provide individualized instruction based on each one’s unique needs. (*Students are to begin utilizing i-Ready instruction (My Path and Teacher assigned lessons) Following the completion of the i-Ready diagnostic. (Grades 1-5: September 21-October 2  Grade K: October 5-16)

Lexia- Lexia addresses the development of oral language, reading, spelling, and writing skills for students. (Not all students have access, see your classroom teacher for more information)

Open e-books- an application that provides a mobile digital library with thousands of popular and award-winning books free for you to use at home or at school. (Login through Clever to access Handout for directions)

Hartford Public Library –  has a number of kid friendly databases and many newspapers – historical and current – that students may access with parental support and supervision (and a family public library card number/pin).  Links are on the HPL site and Boundless through Clever Homepage.

Boundless Lib Guide

https://hplct.libguides.com/BoundlessResources/Books

Boundless catalog

boundlesshartford.org/catalog

*HPL is offering curbside pick-up. Call 860-695-6300 or request online. hplct.org/catalog

****************************************************************

The following HPS approved resources are available through Clever continued

Bookflix– a fun, reading program that you and your child can access from home!! This engaging resource for children in grades PreK-3 will help early readers develop and practice essential reading skills and introduce students to a world of knowledge and exploration.

All students have access to bookflix through the HPL Boundless App in Clever. (You may also use the link https://hplct.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/boundless/0)  The information on signing in is right on the page.  The library card number is 22520000000000

Brainfuse- Brainfuse is an online tutoring service available free to all currently enrolled Hartford Public Schools students. (*Coming soon to Clever and the Boundless page)

****************************************************************

Access to other Digital Resources not linked in Clever, but may be used with students

Reading A-Z https://www.readinga-z.com (free sample texts)

Time for Kids: https://time.com/tfk-free/

Readworks: https://www.readworks.org/

Newsela: https://newsela.com/ (Join now or enter class code)

Flyleaf: portal.flyleafpublishing.com (click on “For Students”)

This portal is offered as a free resource through the 2020–2021 school year. There are two areas of the site, one for Students and one for Instructors. Materials are organized by the Phonics Scope and Sequence, and can be quickly navigated using the Menu at the top of the page.  If you would like more information about Flyleaf products, please visit flyleafpublishing.com.

****************************************************************

Access to Hartford Public Library Digital Resources

The QR Code above will bring you directly to the Hartford Public Library’s app. 

More to come!