Make the Home-School Connection

Family Involvement

Kid Scoop News activities are an excellent resource linking school to home. Many families, especially those in which English is not the primary language, lack resources to support language acquisition. Therefore, homework assignments should be designed so all families can participate.

Homework Activities Using Kid Scoop News

1. Have parents use Kid Scoop News to help children with these Word Work activities:
   • Contractions: Next to each contraction, write the letters that have been left out by the formation of the contraction.
   • Compound words: Draw a line between the words that make up the compound word.
   • Grammar: Find common nouns, proper nouns and verbs. Sort them on a piece of paper divided into three sections.
   • Syllables: Find examples of 2- and 3- syllable words; draw lines to separate the syllables in each word.
   • Affixes: Identify words with prefixes and suffixes. Sort into two columns using a “T” chart.
2. As students read an article in Kid Scoop News, have them list new, unusual or interesting words they find. How can they figure out their meanings? Students pick some of the words as a catalyst to write about something that happened to them, after which they read their accounts out loud to their families.
3. Students read the selected article two times. Then they read it to someone in the family to practice fluency. A family member times the student to see how far he or she can read in one minute. The student reads the same passage for three nights to try to continually beat his best time.
4. Students locate and circle words that begin with as many different letters from A to Z as they can find on one Kid Scoop News page. They cut out the words and put them in alphabetic order.
5. Students complete the activities on one or more Kid Scoop News page(s) with family for homework.