Welcome! My name is Lauren Kraus, and I teach fifth grade Language Arts which includes English, spelling, reading and writing. I love my job and and truly enjoy teaching middle school students. Our amazing team is comprised of Mrs. Akana, a wonderful math teacher, and Mrs. Bills a fantastic science and social studies teacher. Please visit their websites, also! I hope this web site helps keep you organized and informed throughout the year.

Students are assigned 20 spelling words each Monday and are tested over those words on Friday. We have short spelling review assignments throughout the week, but the bulk of their studying will need to be outside of class. Please remind your students to study their spelling words every night.

Each day we will have a Daily Language Review (DLR) which will cover a wide variety of English skills. We will be tested over these skills every Friday. The quiz will also include any other English skills we have reviewed in class that week. Please remind your student to study his/her DLRs throughout the week.

As we all know, reading is key to success in school. Our AR program is a great tool to encourage reading at an individualized comfortable level for each child. Students are required to read and test to obtain a certain number of points every six weeks. Your student's comfortable reading zone as well as the number of points required each six weeks is determined by the STAR test. Your student should be reading for atleast 30 minutes every night. Please see the "download page" to review the parent AR letter you received in September.

My classes attend the library every two weeks. We go for 40 minutes every other Thursday and may check out two books, one of which must be AR. Students will also have a chance to visit the library during school hours on their own free time when they are finished with all work. They may also attend before school at 7:30 with a note from a teacher or parent/guardian. I also have a vast library in my room for book check out. Your child should always have an AR book to read.

Any work not finished in class will be considered homework. It is due the following day at class time.

Any student who earns a failing grade on an assignment (69 or below) will have the chance to correct the paper, have it signed by a parent/guardian and return it to me within two days for a 70.