Principles of Instruction for English Language Arts
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Aligned with the currently adopted state standards and research-based best-practices, our curriculum employs explicit, intentional and differentiated instruction centered on the needs of all students
In order to accelerate and sustain all learners' proficiency in reading/language arts classes, seven principles are being used to guide the district's work and address the complexity of the content and context of language arts instruction. These principles will direct the purpose, design, delivery, and evaluation of instruction. Therefore all schools:
- Will use the adopted English language arts state standards as the curricular platform and align curriculum, assessment, instruction, and organization to provide a comprehensive, coherent structure for language arts teaching and learning;
- Will stress the importance of a balanced, comprehensive reading program;
- Will emphasize that students must be fluent readers at least by the end of third grade;
- Will target the important skills, concepts and strategies that students must be able to use after the third grade and provide remedial support as necessary;
- Will provide guidance to ensure that all educators and learners understand that
- specific skills in reading, writing, speaking, and listening must be taught and learned,
- language arts standards are related and taught in a reciprocal processes that build on and strengthen one another, and
- language arts standards in reading and writing can be learned across all academic disciplines;
- Will promote a preventive rather than remedial approach, as supported by the research of Shaywitz, 2003, and Torgesen, 2001; and
- Will address the full range of learners in all classrooms through differentiated instructional methods.