Our school’s goal is to improve all pre-kindergarten through grade eight students’ academic performance in Language Arts Literacy by providing high quality, effective, and varied research-based instruction.
Our school has implemented a research-based balanced Literacy Program published by MacMillan/McGraw Hill, entitled: Treasures. This literacy program provides our students in grades kindergarten through five with research-based curriculum materials. Teachers utilize read alouds; guided reading; shared reading; independent reading; intertwined with various writing opportunities and techniques as a means to a whole literacy approach. Our new program includes flexible grouping based on student needs, one on one specific skills instruction, independent reading, and ongoing assessment to continually direct instruction.
Kindergarten, first and second grade teachers at Haledon Public School are trained in the Orton Gillingham program. Teachers utilize this program and its techniques to compliment the Treasures Literacy Series. The Orton-Gillingham method is language-based and success-oriented. The students are directly taught reading, handwriting, and written expression as one logical body of knowledge. Learners move step by step from simple to more complex material in a sequential, logical manner that enables students to master important literacy skills. The Orton-Gillingham methodology utilizes phonetics and emphasizes visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles. Instruction begins by focusing on the structure of language and gradually moves towards reading. This program provides students with immediate feedback and a predictable sequence that integrates reading, writing, and spelling. This comprehensive approach to reading instruction benefits all students.
In grades five through eight, students are actively involved and engaged in reading, as well as, discussing several well-known and award winning novels throughout the year, which compliment the existing literacy program. The events, issues, and challenges faced by characters throughout these novels provide students with a plethora of topics to write about. Essays and readers’ responses provide wonderful opportunities for one on one teacher conferencing in order to develop fluent and successful readers and writers.
The novels provide what is termed as, “common learning experiences”, to ensure each student shares a significant depth of common prior knowledge as they move on to the next grade level. As a result, teachers are able to build upon these common learning experiences to utilize preexisting student knowledge in order to build background knowledge regarding the next unit of study.
Our school’s goal is to improve all pre-kindergarten through grade eight students’ academic performance in mathematics by providing high quality, effective, and varied research-based instruction in order to provide all students with the skills necessary for success.
Our kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms have implemented the latest edition of the Houghton Mifflin Mathematics Program. This program contains research based lessons which focus on the daily use of best practices and differentiated instruction. Students are involved in hands-on mathematics activities, with the use of manipulatives, which engage students right from the start.
In addition, students at the primary level participate in activities in which they focus on connections between mathematics and literature. A great story can often become a springboard for teaching or reinforcing a mathematical concept. This linking of mathematics and literacy effectively enhances children's learning in all related curriculum areas.
Students in grades six through eight are currently using the Glencoe McGraw Hill Program for mathematics instruction. During the middle school years students build upon the strong mathematical number sense which has been built throughout grades K to five. At this point, our middle school students deepen their understanding of more complex mathematical concepts such as: fractions; decimals; percents; integers; and they become proficient in using them to solve problems. Students gain extensive experience with ratios, rates, and percents, which help form a solid foundation for their understanding of, and facility with, proportionality. The study of rational numbers in the middle grades builds on students’ prior knowledge of whole-number concepts and skills.
