Literacy/Language Arts
The South Windsor Public Schools literacy program adheres to the beliefs articulated by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the International Literacy Association (ILA):
“All students must have the opportunities and resources to develop the language skills they need to pursue life’s goals and to participate fully as informed, productive members of society. …Curriculum and instruction must provide ample room for the innovation and creativity essential to teaching and learning.”
The primary goal of the literacy program is to produce reflective, critical and creative thinkers through the language experiences of reading, writing, speaking and listening. Teachers meet the needs of learners by creating an interpretive community in which students are engaged in transforming information and experiences into knowledge and understanding.
Thoughtfully selected shared and mentor texts provide students with a wide variety of models for reading and writing. All students work with meaningful, grade-level fiction and nonfiction texts, in addition to practicing and applying literacy skills and concepts to other authentic texts, chosen based on interest, reading level, and/or thematic relevance. Strategic guided and small group reading pairs students with texts at their instructional level and provides a ladder for continuous literacy progress. Students construct and share meaning derived from texts through discourse and written response. Extended written pieces develop through a process, including prewriting, rehearsing, composing, conferring, revising, editing and sharing. Teachers incorporate varied and strategic instructional strategies to support the individual needs of students, continually scaffolding learning to involve reading and producing increasingly complex texts.
The Connecticut Core Standards for English Language Arts outline seven critical “capacities” or “habits of mind” of a “literate individual.”
Helping students to exhibit these capacities and “increasing fullness and regularity as they advance through the grades” is central to our literacy program.
Demonstrate independence
Build strong content knowledge
Respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline
Comprehend as well as critique
Value evidence
Use technology and digital media strategically and capably
Learn to understand other perspectives and cultures
Skills and Student Outcomes
What students should know and be expected to do by the end of the unit
Literature and Informational Text
Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text
Determine a theme or main ideas of a text using key details from the text; summarize text
Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama
Determine the meaning of general academic or domain specific words and phrases as they are used in a text
Describe the overall structure of a literary or informational text or part of a text
Compare and contrast the point of view from which different stories or accounts of events are narrated
Interpret information presented visually, orally or quantitatively and explain how the information contributes to an understanding f the text in which it appears
Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes, topics and patterns of events in stories, myths and traditional literature from different cultures; or integrate information from two texts to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably
Read and comprehend literature and informational text in the grade 4 text complexity band proficiently
Writing and Language
Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose and audience
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation and spelling when writing
Speaking and Listening
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions
Additional Resources
Where to go for additional information and support
