Delran Intermediate School

Hello DIS Families, 

Intervention and Enrichment

I&E will begin Friday, October 3rd.  You will be able to see your child’s teacher in the parent portal no later than Wednesday, October 1st at 4:00 pm.

NJASK Scores (4th and 5th Grade Students)

The individual student score reports, for students who took the NJASK at DIS last year, are being sent home with students on Monday.

FASTT Math and Computational Fluency

As you heard on Back to School night, we are changing the way that we are reinforcing computational fluency. Starting this week, students will begin to routinely utilize FASTT Math as a way to reinforce their math facts.  Each week, students are being asked to complete a minimum of three lessons a week. After completing the initial assessment, students will complete lessons tailored to their needs. The number of problems in a lesson ranges from 50 to 70 problems. Students can complete up to two lessons a day. At the end of the marking period, your child will receive two grades for computational fluency. One will be based on the average number of lessons completed each week. The other will be based on the percentage of known facts. If your child has numerous facts to practice in order for them to be secure, they may go onto FASTT math more often. Your child’s teacher will be sharing their Fact Fluency status report and information about the average number of lessons completed at conferences.

Please review the information below from Mrs. Wendy DeVicaris, Delran’s K-12 supervisor of Mathematics, which explains about why we study math and other ways that you can help your child.

WHY STUDY MATH FACTS?  A solid math foundation is built on deep fundamental understandings. The math facts are like the windows or other important parts of a structure.  Students who do not master math facts will likely have increasing difficulty in math as they progress through the grades. Math in the higher grades involves higher order algorithms that require multiple steps. Lack of automatic recall of math facts will slow efforts at problem solution and produce errors. 

Parents, you are our partners in this process and we need your help to support the studying of math facts.  Your children will have a greater opportunity to succeed in math if the learning of the basics is also reinforced at home.   How can you help your child learn the facts?  Practice, practice, practice!! 

The whole family can be involved in this one, even younger siblings!  And as students learn new facts, continue to reinforce the facts that have already been learned.  In other words, never through away a flash card!   Skip counting, which includes having your child list the multiples of a given number (i.e. 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, etc.)  also helps with multiplication and division facts!  We are used to doing it for the easy numbers, but if you do if for the harder numbers too it will really help your child to commit the facts to memory. Children can skip count silently when they brush their teeth, or can skip count out loud as they jump rope.  The whole family can even take turns skip counting in the car!  Think how fun that will be!   Even though math facts are important, we all recognize that they are not exciting, especially in today’s digital world.  Practice sessions do not have to be long.  You will be impressed by the improvement only a few minutes a day can produce!  HAVE FUN!!

PTA Info

The Delran Elementary PTA provides a tremendous service to our students and our school. This week, the youngest child in each family should have received the KidStuff fundraiser books. These books are filled with many valuable coupons. If you do not chose to purchase, please be sure to return the books to school. Also, please be on the lookout for information about the fall fundraiser which will be coming home with students during the upcoming week.

One of the PTA’s biggest events is just around the corner, the Fall Festival. Please be sure to mark your calendar and join us on October 3rd at Delran Middle School for pumpkin decorating, scarecrow making, story time with teachers and lots of snacks.

If you have not already done so please fill out a PTA Membership Form, sign up for the School Directory and like the new Delran Elementary PTA Facebook page.  Information and forms can be found at www.delranelementarypta.com.

Have a great weekend.

Educationally yours,

Mrs. Lowe and Mrs. Rash