Language Arts Overview

Children in PreK through Grade 2 undergo a tremendous period of growth in their language and literacy skills. It is our goal that they move from being four-year-olds with a wealth of knowledge and experiences that will lay a solid foundation for literacy, to leaving Grade 2 as fluent readers and writers who are ready to apply their skills to acquiring and integrating new information in the grades beyond.

Most children by the end of Grade 3 and in Grades 4 and 5 are fluent, independent readers and writers. Although they are quite skilled, they need instruction in this stage to ensure that they are able to both learn and integrate new information from the many texts that they read. They need to read extensively on their own to consolidate skills, become faster readers and acquire new information and vocabulary. They also require direct instruction in structures that are most effective for communicating their ideas as well as time to practice writing.

Middle school students have mastered basic reading and writing skills and are able to use their literacy skills to extend their knowledge. The essential literacy task for children in this age group is to move beyond concrete meanings in favor of an understanding of abstraction and the ways in which ideas connect. They are reading not only for plot or to learn new information, but they are becoming deep, critical readers. They write not only to relay new information, but to create new information and extend their understanding. At the highest level of this grade band, students should be working to develop truly original ideas in their writing—not simply to refashion ideas discussed in class.