MICKLETON – Literacy Skills Classes have begun for all grade levels in the East Greenwich Elementary School System.
The purpose of the Literacy Skills class is to enhance their writing program by providing continuity across the grade levels. It also allows everyone, both teachers and students, to speak the same writing language.
Over the summer, a team of highly skilled literacy teachers worked together to streamline the reading and writing programs, coming up with a curriculum as well as a scope and sequence that outlined what each grade level was to cover.
Each grade level is expected to address the 6 Writing Traits, the multiple writing genres that align with the Common Core Standards, as well as strategies to incorporate into their writing toolkit.
As of December, all grade levels have been exposed to the Ideas Trait and the Organization Trait. They also have a clear understanding of the elements of a personal narrative.
Grades three and four have worked on multiple strategies to start their writing such as using dialogue, onomatopoeia, and “teasers”. Grades five and six have been working on the Explanatory Essay with a focus on how this would be used in their assessment in the content areas.
Each genre covered the elements of the selected text as well as prepared students to assess writing using the rubric for that specific genre.
Mrs. Kathleen Dougherty has helped mentor many of our new teachers with Writing Instruction in their Language Arts classrooms. The faculty feels this program has benefited all grade levels in the school.
