Scarsdale Elementary ELA News!
To provide a culture of growth, the Scarsdale Schools currently uses a variety of professional learning structures to support our development and inspire our practice. This professional collaboration includes Scarsdale Teachers Institute (STI) courses, Scarsdale Teachers Collaborative (ST@C), Center for Innovation (CFI), and collaboration with internationally recognized consultants (i.e. Dr. Nell K. Duke, Yvonne Liu Constant (Harvard's Project Zero), Dr. Tim Shanahan, Hobbes, Richardson, Stockman, Sulla, Ziemke, and many more).
The pillars that represent our District beliefs in the teaching of literacy are as follows:
Students benefit from the components of a comprehensive literacy model. That model includes strong foundational skills, rich mentor texts, explicit instruction, guided practice, inquiry, and the creative, student-centered meaningful opportunities that a learning workshop structure provides.
Students and teachers benefit from instructional/curricular flexibility that invites and encourages integrative curriculum design, responsive instruction, and authentic student-centered inquiry.
Students and teachers benefit from curriculum articulation that includes shared vocabulary, coordinated content, and common structures with horizontal and vertical alignment in the elementary grades.
Students benefit from worthy and rigorous learning outcomes, which guide our work beyond the State standards.
Our core instructional practices include:
Teachers and students utilizing the most up-to-date literacy tools and coaching resources.
Learning progressions that indicate student development from year to year help to guide our teachers and students in self-reflection and vertical alignment.
Implementing the most current learning standards in ELA (Next Generation Standards) into our instruction.
use of the TCRWP Units of Study and through other created and/or adapted mean
Formative assessments, which guide instruction.
Literacy instruction taught across the ten-month school year.
Teachers collaborating with colleagues in the meaningful integration of science, social studies, and math content into new and existing units, guided by District goals and learning standards.