ENGLISH K-5 - IRVINGTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The K-5 English Language Arts program is designed to foster a love of reading and to develop skills that are essential for students to become effective, lifelong readers and writers. Our balanced-literacy program provides opportunities for learning experiences in listening and speaking, phonemic awareness, phonics, word identification, word analysis, vocabulary development, fluency, and comprehension strategies. As students read a variety of selections, they learn appropriate strategies to optimize their comprehension. These strategies include previewing and predicting, confirming predictions, using prior or background knowledge, self-questioning, adjusting reading rate, using typographic clues, visualizing, rereading, and using text features and illustrations to facilitate comprehension. As a result of students’ focus on comprehension, students develop into readers who learn how to relate the text to themselves, the world, and other texts. They learn to be critical and active readers who know that reading equates with getting meaning from text.

The importance of students developing good habits for reading is emphasized in this program. Following a mini-lesson modeled by the teacher to focus students’ attention to a specific text aspect or strategy, students are offered multiple opportunities for practice and application. This is accomplished through independent and partner reading, usage of graphic-organizers, and retellings. Group discussions are used to explore students’ understanding of textual content and ideas. Written responses also provide and encourage student self-reflections and meta-cognition.

The main purpose of word study is to examine words in order to reveal consistencies within our written language system and to help students master the recognition, spelling, and meaning of specific words. Becoming fully literate is absolutely dependent on fast, accurate recognition of words and their meanings in texts, and fast, accurate production of words in writing so that readers and writers can focus their attention on making meaning.

The English Language Arts K-5 curriculum is aligned with the New Jersey Student Learning Standards.

English Language Arts K-5
Dr. Teesha Davis-Drain,
Supervisor
973-399-6800 x1144

1 University Place
Irvington
New Jersey 07111

You Should Know

To learn more about the Common Core State Standards Initiative, please visit the following website: www.corestandards.org

Here to Assist You

Hutchins Latasha,
Secretary Ext 1670

Once you learn to read,
you will be forever free.
–Frederick Douglas

Our Primary Goal

Our primary goal is to develop proficiency in the skills of Reading, Writing, Speaking & Listening, and Language to ensure that our students are Career and College Ready, and therefore able to:

• 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

• Come to Understand Other Perspectives and Cultures

Key Features

The following are Key Features of the English Language Arts Standards for Kindergarten through Grade 12:

Reading (Literature and Informational Texts & Foundational Skills for Kindergarten through Grade 5): Text Complexity and the growth of comprehension

Writing: Text types, responding to reading, and research
Speaking and Listening: Flexible communication and collaboration
Language: Conventions, effective use, and vocabulary
Literacy in History/Social Studies Grades 6-12
Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects 6-12

The reading program uses a balanced literacy approach that includes the following components: read alouds, shared reading, guided reading, literature study, and independent reading. The program integrates history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. Also, it provides a wide range of informational and narrative genres in a readers’ workshop environment which includes class, small group, and individualized instruction and learning.

The writing program is implemented in a writer’s workshop environment where students learn components of good writing, use computers to research and write, and produce writing on a given topic during the writing process.

Speaking & Listening and Language are integrated in the reading and writing programs in grades K- 12.

Teacher Resources

Online Resources: Free Sites for online book reading. Other sites will be added as they become available by review of the ELA Supervisor K-5.

www.textproject.org

Text Project provides a world of open-access resources for teachers, parents, tutors and students.

www.bookadventure.com

Book Adventure is a fun, free way to motivate children to read! Kids in grades K-8 can search for books, read them offline, and come back to quiz on what they’ve read.

www.readingbear.org

Reading Bear is a fun way to learn to read. Over 1,200 vocabulary items are taught and sounded out. The 50 presentations cover all the main phonics rules.

http://www.mnh.si.edu/panoramas/

The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History offers comprehensive virtual tours allowing visitors using a desktop computer (Windows, Mac, Linux) or a mobile device (iPhone, iPad, Android) to take a virtual, self-guided, room-by-room walking tour of the whole museum. You can even browse a list of past exhibits, which is included on the ground floor map (see upper right map buttons). The visitor can navigate from room to room by clicking map locations or by following blue arrow links on the floor that connect the rooms. The desktop version includes camera icons to indicate hotspots where the visitor can get a close-up view of a particular object or exhibit panel.

http://pbskids.org/read/

Play, explore and read with PBS kids.