Many people say that knowledge is changing so fast that what students learn today will soon be outdated. While current events and technology are constantly changing, there is nevertheless a body of lasting knowledge that should form the core of a Preschool-Grade 8 curriculum. Such solid knowledge includes, for example, the basic principles of constitutional government, important events of world history, essential elements of mathematics and of oral and written expression, widely acknowledged masterpieces of art and music, and stories and poems passed down from generation to generation.
Sequenced
Knowledge builds on knowledge. Children learn new knowledge by building on what they already know. Only a school system that clearly defines the knowledge and skills required to participate in each successive grade can be excellent and fair for all students. For this reason, the Core Knowledge Sequence provides a clear outline of content to be learned grade by grade. This sequential building of knowledge not only helps ensure that children enter each new grade ready to learn, but also helps prevent the many repetitions and gaps that characterize much current schooling (repeated units, for example, on pioneer days or the rain forest, but little or no attention to the Bill of Rights, or to adding fractions with unlike denominators).
Specific
A typical state or district curriculum says, "Students will demonstrate knowledge of people, events, ideas, and movements that contributed to the development of the United States." But which people and events? What ideas and movements? In contrast, the Core Knowledge Sequence is distinguished by its specificity. By clearly specifying important knowledge in language arts, history and geography, math, science, and the fine arts, the Core Knowledge Sequence presents a practical answer to the question, "What do our children need to know?"
Shared
Literacy depends on shared knowledge. To be literate means, in part, to be familiar with a broad range of knowledge taken for granted by speakers and writers. For example, when sportscasters refer to an upset victory as "David knocking off Goliath," or when reporters refer to a "threatened presidential veto," they are assuming that their audience shares certain knowledge. One goal of the Core Knowledge Foundation is to provide all children, regardless of background, with the shared knowledge they need to be included in our national literate culture.
New federal and state initiatives are seeking to address the underlying reasons for our children’s poor academic performance—especially in mathematics. While it is true that America’s math students generally perform below those in other developed countries, the problem is not with our students but rather the way they are being taught math.For more than 25 years Saxon Publishers’ research-based programs have produced dramatic, sustained results in mathematics. More and more educators are turning to Saxon programs because they work. This is part of the reasoning behind MonumentAcademy’s choice to use this curriculum.
Saxon stresses basic math skills to better prepare students for higher learning. In fact, Benjamin Bloom, the renowned University of Chicago education professor and researcher, said teachers using the Saxon method “could take a whole generation and make great mathematicians of them.”
The success of Saxon programs can be attributed to the program’s unique, effective, and research-based pedagogy, which helps students develop a deeper understanding of concepts and how to apply them. Saxon’s innovative instructional approach breaks complex concepts into related increments, recognizing that smaller pieces of information are easier to teach and easier to learn.The instruction, practice, and assessment of those increments is systematically distributed across a grade level. This distributed approach ensures that students gain and retain critical thinking skills.
John Saxon (1923-1996), founder of Saxon Publishers, pioneered this innovative instructional approach while teaching junior college algebra. The retired U.S. Air Force officer and engineer developed his methodology as a result of his students’ inability to comprehend or retain the algebra they were being taught. The positive learning results achieved by his students inspired him to author his first textbook and start his own publishing company.
Today, thousands of teachers, administrators, parents and students have discovered the numerous benefits of using Saxon programs, including higher test scores, increased self-confidence and a solid foundation in math skills.
An effective Literacy program is the cornerstone of every student's education. Without the basic skills of reading, writing, and communicating, students cannot fully participate in the educational process. MonumentAcademy utilizes a Balanced Literacy approach.
At MA, we believe that all students benefit from a keen understanding of Phonics.Our Riggs program provides this foundation.Additionally, reading strategies, as well as specific skills, are taught through explicit instruction.Often lessons are grounded in the content areas of History, Geography, and Science.Teachers’ model reading and thinking through sharing quality texts from a wide variety of genres. Guided practice before, during, and after reading and writing will direct students through tests or tasks using small group instruction, mini or focused lessons, conferences with the teacher, and student discussion groups. If you observe our classrooms you will see frequent and on-going activities to practice learned skills including written responses. We offer consistent opportunities for students to read self-selected texts while the teacher offers guidance and feedback as the student develops the skill of advanced reading ability. Skills learned are used throughout the student’s education in all content specific areas.
We utilize continuous assessment model where teachers use assessment to plan their instruction. The assessment is on-going in the classroom and will help to form a body of evidence for each student’s abilities.Teachers also track student growth through a variety of assessments.
Because different students learn differently, multi-sensory instructional approaches are provided throughout the day.The Riggs: Writing and Spelling Road to Reading and Thinking, an explicit phonics program, incorporates multi-sensory techniques into each lesson and supports all students as they use learning tools that maximize their own learning.The Riggs approach to English literacy fully integrates auditory, visual, verbal and motor skills simultaneously, and uses both direct and Socratic instructional techniques.
A foundation for our language arts instruction will be Riggs: Writing and Spelling Road to Reading and Thinking (Riggs), an explicit phonics program published by The Riggs Institute.The Riggs program provides explicit phonics instruction, incorporates multi-sensory techniques in each lesson and supports all students as they use learning tools that maximize their own learning.This approach will help students achieve optimal academic and developmental growth.
Riggs has been produced through 120 collective years of research and experience begun by Dr. Samuel T. Orton. Riggs teaches the following language arts “strands” and cognitive development: explicit phonics with dictated initial letter formation; the Alphabetic Principle; phonemic and graphemic awareness; correct spelling with 47 rules; fluent oral and silent reading; oral and print comprehension; vocabulary; pronunciation and speech; creative and organizational composition; grammar, syntax, punctuation, and capitalization; analytical and inferential thinking; auditory/visual/verbal/motor cognitive development of: attention, discrimination, association and memory.
To grasp the practical importance of that point for our entire educational system, we need to ask a fundamental question. Why is high national literacy the key to educational progress in all domains of learning, even in mathematics and natural sciences? We have long known that there is a high correlation between students’ reading ability and their ability to learn new materials in diverse fields. That sounds vaguely reasonable, even obvious, but why exactly should it be the case? Let’s try to understand the not-so-obvious reason for the high correlation between reading ability and learning ability.
The true measure of reading ability is the ease and accuracy with which a person can understand diverse kinds of writing. All standardized tests of reading ability include samples from several different subject matters. But why isn’t one long sampling just as effective a test as several short ones? Well, if reading ability were a purely generalizable skill, one long sample would be an adequate diagnostic test. But in fact, reading ability is not a generalizable skill. If a young boy knows a lot about snakes but very little about lakes, he will make a good score on a passage about snakes, but a lower score on a passage about lakes. So to get a fairly accurate picture of his overall reading ability, we have to sample how he does on a variety of subjects.
But notice that this variability in a person’s performance shows us something of utmost importance about reading ability. To have a good general reading ability, you need to know about a lot of things. If you know about lakes and snakes, and rakes and cakes, you will have higher reading ability than if you just know about snakes. Aha! You might say, that simply means you will read better if you have a broad vocabulary. That is true. But remember what it means to have a broad vocabulary, knowing a lot of words means knowing a lot of things. Words refer to things. Language arts are also knowledge arts. (taken from the New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy by E.D. Hirsch, 2002, pg. xiii)
One of the reasons we use many diverse literary experiences in our school is to honor the need for children to be exposed to many ideas and concepts. A broader sampling of information creates a more knowledgeable individual. We use classic literature from preschool through the eighth grade to reinforce these principles. For more information on our reading list and available literature, please see the classroom teachers or request a copy of the Core Knowledge Sequence.
Philosophy of Penmanship
Historically, cursive was taught first to our nation’s children. Today, reading and dyslexia experts are rediscovering that teaching cursive first before print or manuscript, improves long-term penmanship skills, helps children learn to read, virtually eliminates reversals, and enables children to read what is written by others. (LITHBTH Educational Services, 2009) This method of writing helps strengthen the child’s reading skills. By joining letters, cursive writing reinforces the blending of sounds within words.
Until the later 1930’s, schools across the nation took this approach and, as a result, most American school children developed beautiful handwriting. Ball-and-stick manuscript came about as part of progressive education reforms in the 1940’s. The change was primarily made to help children recognize the letters in the “Dick and Jane” look-say readers.
By starting with cursive writing rather than manuscript printing, we help the child develop good writing habits from the very beginning. This means that habits acquired from manuscript printing do not need to be unlearned. “Do not teach anything that has to be unlearned, and do not let a child develop a bad habit. Instruct the child to do it right from the beginning.” Samuel Blumenfeld, The Blumenfeld Education Letter, September 1994.
Research has shown that students learn manuscript and print through reading. They will eventually pick this form of writing up on their own but easily transfer the needed skills to read more quickly than combining the skills of writing and reading. These involve different motor and processing skills that we believe are better kept separate.
Monument Academy is dedicated to providing education that will support the best practices for student achievement. It is for this reason we are embarking on this endeavor to teach cursive writing from the very beginning. We believe that it will help to establish a more solid foundation for reading, writing, and math skills. We will use cursive writing from pre-kindergarten through the eighth grade as the written style of writing.
Attachments:
1. How Should We Teach our Children to Write? Cursive first, print later! by Samuel Blumenfeld
2. St. Knox Academy Cursive First Curriculum
3. Simplifying the Writing Process by Phillip McInnis
