Reading & Writing

The K-5 English language arts curriculum is aligned to the New Jersey Student Learning Standards for English Language Arts. As such, the Curriculum establishes a “staircase” of increasing complexity in what students are expected to read and compose. The key components of a balanced literacy program are delivered through a workshop framework. Instruction is aimed at concurrently building student capacity in the acquisition and application of foundational reading skills, developing comprehension across a wide range of literary and informational texts, crafting written and spoken outputs of thinking, productively engaging in collaborative discussions, and developing dexterity in appropriately utilizing the conventions of standard English.

A wide range of literary and informational texts is viewed as a vehicle for teaching the components of a balanced literacy program. These components are addressed through genre-focused units of study at each grade level. Each unit includes a variety of voices honoring the diversity of race, class, gender, and ethnicity so that young readers may grow to acknowledge and appreciate the commonality of the human experience. Student learning is guided by essential questions which aim to develop competency across a wide range of literacy skills, and foster the successful transfer of these literacy skills to other content areas. Unit objectives, along with a menu of suggested teaching points and expected student outcomes are provided in each grade’s respective language arts curriculum map. The units of study, and their corresponding essential questions are as follows: