January 27, 2004

Dear Parents,

Today I welcomed your child to my classroom, Room B-21. I hope to meet you at “Back to School Night” on Thursday, February 5th. I will introduce myself then. But I thought I would take the opportunity to describe briefly how this class will work. I believe in a “Read First” philosophy. In fact, the website for the class is www.readfirst.net and features a picture of my license plate : READ 1ST

“Read First” as a strategy places the burden of communication on the writer and the reader. It is the writer’s responsibility to engage his reader and to activate his prior knowledge. It is the reader’s responsibility to grapple with the text until he understands it. To that end, students will engage text of increasing difficulty and, over time, will learn to ma text independently. There will be few cooperative learning situations in the class. It is crucial for students to develop independent strategies for unlocking the ideas in complex text. Failure to accomplish that goal will seriously limit how far they can proceed in education.

For students to be successful in this environment, it is necessary for them mark up text as a way of entering it. Thus, we rely on consumable printed material rather than conventional textbooks. Much of this text is on the classroom website. In order to control reproduction costs in the classroom, students will be asked routinely to access the website and print out a story, chapter or poem to bring to class. This is also a responsibility issue and some students need much training before this is learned behavior.

The website is for parent use as well. There are a number of articles I have written which are up on the site and help explain the pedagogy behind the class. There is also a link at the bottom that will allow you to e-mail me. Please feel free to do so anytime you have a question about the class or your son or daughter’s progress.

e-mail address: jfarrell@conejo.k12.ca.us

Regards,

Jack Farrell

Student’s Name: ___________________ e-mail address: ____________________

Parent’s Name(s): ______________________ e-mail address: ___________________