Mrs. Vaughan

  Welcome to First Grade

I am so happy to be here in Eastchester working with your children. I formerly taught in New York City for nineteen years. I joined the Waverly faculty in September 2004. I have my masters degree in early childhood education and a bachelors degree in psychology.My Educational philosophy is that children learn best when they feel comfortable to take risks within the classroom. I believe in creating a hands-on environment where I can facilitate the academic growth of your children.

First Grade Curriculum:

First grade is an exciting time for your child. He/she will begin or enhance their reading skills. Our curriculum includes the three main components of reading; graphophonics, semantics and syntax.

Graphophonics-Open Court allows us to teach the phonetic component of reading (sounding out words and learning g rules of spelling).

Semantic-Reading with meaning. Children must understand what they are reading. I teach this through class read-alouds, shared reading, reading workshop and guided reading.

Syntax-Words need to sound grammatically correct when we read. when students make an error I will ask them did that "sound right?"

Writers' Workshop

Our class studies writing from the masters. We use several touchstone books and examine the authors' craft.We touch upon a variety of genres; fiction, non-fiction, memoir, poetry, etc..