Our ELA Program is designed to have our students develop critical thinking skills in reading comprehension, writing, speaking, listening, and research. Our teachers provide a foundation upon which students build as they develop increasingly deeper proficiency with advanced literacy skills. The foundational skills are built simultaneously with comprehension, vocabulary, and oral language skills and are therefore only a part of a comprehensive and effective reading program in which our students read a variety of texts across genres. Our ELA program supports the needs of all learners through differentiation and encourages lifelong practices of readers and writers.

The five key concepts at the core of our reading instruction program are:

Phonemic Awareness

• Addresses hearing the sounds and distinguishing between them.

Phonics

• Addresses connecting sounds with letters or a group of letters.

Fluency

• Addresses reading with confidence from a variety of appropriate texts with speed, accuracy, and expression.

Vocabulary

• Addresses developing the meaning for most of the words in a text so they can understand what they read. Students will learn how to apply a variety of strategies to learn meanings of words in texts. Students will learn how to make connections between words and concepts. Students will learn how to accurately use words in oral and written language.

Reading Comprehension

• Addresses utilizing and applying reading strategies to understand the information from a text.

New York State Next Generation English Language Arts Standards