Language Arts

The goals of the language arts curriculum are to help students attain:

1. A facility with words that enables them to express and appreciate feelings, perceptions, ideas and knowledge and understanding, both verbally and in writing.
2. A wide spectrum of experiences reading, writing and listening, in a variety of genre and styles, with a profound appreciation for and understanding of the beauty and power of language.

We cultivate and nurture these through a multifaceted and interdisciplinary approach to the teaching of language arts. In the early years, students are exposed to a rich assortment of poetry, stories and non-fiction through group and individual reading sessions. Students learn early how to speak to a group through circle time sharing activities and develop word attack skills through phonics and whole word exercises. As students progress through 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades, they learn and practice the editing process in their writing in collaboration with their peers and teachers. Grammar and spelling are taught through texts, direct instruction and the writing process.

In the upper grades, as students master the rudiments of reading fluently both individually and aloud in a group, the focus is increasingly on critical thinking, comprehension, inference and written and creative responses to what they are reading. Students are asked to read, respond and write in an even broader range of genre and styles of writing  including fiction, historic fiction, science fiction, biography and non-fiction, and poetry.