Elementary School (1-5) Program

Our academic program starts where a child can experience true success. We work to build foundational skills in all areas. As many of our students have difficulty with reading, we use a multisensory, systematic, phonetic approach to teaching decoding based on the Orton-Gillingham teaching methods.

Specific instruction in phonics, both encoding and decoding, occurs each day within the Reading program. Spelling (encoding) instruction follows the decoding instruction – students spell words that follow the same decoding pattern they are learning. We also focus on building comprehension strategies and increasing fluency.

Using reading materials at their instructional levels, students practice all areas of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency. Materials appropriate for the students’ reading level and age level engage students. Multiple comprehension and active reading strategies are taught during reading instruction and reinforced through application in all other subject areas.

Written language poses a difficulty for many students with learning disabilities. Composing well-written text requires the combination of many processes. Our teachers understand the developmental continuum and use our scope and sequence of skills to guide students to improve their written communication.

Various materials are used throughout the school – Step up to Writing, Diana King’s Paragraphing Kit, The 6 + 1 Traits of Writing, Webspiration – to engage and instruct students through color-coding sentences and parts of paragraphs; learning how to write different types of sentences and paragraphs; understanding word choice, ideas, voice, sentence fluency and the writing process; and using the computer to generate graphic organizers and produce published copies of written work.

We use technology as appropriate and work with our Occupational Therapist to help students develop the fine motor skills essential for legible handwriting, both print and cursive, as well as keyboarding. Cursive instruction begins in 3rd grade as students are ready. Correct formation of the cursive letters in order to write a signature and to read others’ cursive writing are goals for this program.

In Mathematics, we build strong foundational skills and work to fill in any gaps in concept development a child may have. Our program focuses on using a multisensory, hands-on approach based on the Concrete-Representational-Abstract (CRA) sequencing which research has shown to best benefit students in developing strong math skills. We work to build fact fluency through technology and time-tested methods. We are committed to building strong concepts and problem-solving skills so students understand the underlying reasoning for the algorithm. Frequent review and extra practice are provided to shore up these skills.

Our teachers understand the language of math and how this use of language impacts many of our students. Terms such as “greater than” and “less than” are quite confusing to students with language-based learning disabilities. Direct instruction in the language as well as strategy development help our students learn these terms and how to apply them in order to solve problems.

Depending on the math level and learning needs, students may use strategies such as Touch Math, singing songs to support memory for math facts, walking a number line, using manipulatives to solve equations in Hands-On Equations, or referring to their math journal for help with concepts. Calculators are used to support problem-solving activities.

Science and Social Studies classes are taught by homeroom so students experience a larger group setting (up to 13 students). Study Skills are incorporated into these content areas. Even at the youngest levels, students are learning basic skills such as finding the main idea and supporting details, choosing important ideas when researching, showing information in hands-on projects and in writing, and presenting information learned to others. Using hands-on, teacher-guided experiments and projects, students learn how they learn best.