Curriculum Design
The instructional design is recursive; the same major strategies are taught and reinforced through grades K-4. The curriculum is designed to ensure that each student will have command of the basic skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing, and viewing in alignment with the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards. Through oral and written language, students will develop and expand their concepts of self, others, places, and events in the world around them. Skills and strategies are developed by students through their interaction with a variety of materials such literature-based reading program in grades K-4. The integration of listening, speaking, reading, writing, and viewing supports the holistic approach to instruction through the practices of Balanced Literacy. Through the Balanced Literacy Approach, students engage in the following experiences: read-aloud, shared reading, word study, guided reading, independent reading, modeled writing, shared writing, interactive writing, guided writing, and independent writing.
In Writing, teachers utilize a model for assessing and teaching writing. The model is made up of key qualities that define strong writing. These are: Ideas, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, Conventions, and Presentation.
Reading and Writing skills and strategies are taught through a Reader’s Workshop Model and Writer’s Workshop Model. Students are immersed in a community of readers and writers as they develop their skills and practice what real readers and writers do. Creative and critical thinking activities encourage students to generate, ponder, revise, and extend choices. It is recognized that all students need to be challenged and our expectations remain high.
Children’s Literacy Initiative
Children’s Literacy Initiative is a non-profit organization that provides teachers in grades pre-k through grade 3 with professional development in teaching reading and writing. This professional development provides teachers with teaching strategies and techniques that directly impact each student’s ability to read and write. Teachers work with CLI to learn research-based practices for teaching reading and writing, and to improve their content knowledge, instructional practices, and classroom environments.