English Language Arts KG A

The Kindergarten course lays the groundwork for reading and writing. It aims to combine excellent decoding instruction with frequent reading-aloud to ensure that students can translate letters into words and make sense of the words they are decoding.Skills lessons address decoding skills, focusing on sounds or phonemes as the primary organizing principle, rather than letters. Phonics instruction begins with sounds and then attaches those sounds to spellings. Students build awareness of environmental noises, sounds within words, and words within sentences. As students gain phonological awareness, they progress to blending and segmenting sounds within words. Students are introduced to reading using decodable readers that are engaging and fun.
Students learn the mechanics of writing. Starting with pre writing basics, students learn correct grip and the writing strokes used to create letters. Students learn how to “spell the sounds,” writing the letters that represent the sounds that they have learned.The course includes daily read-alouds that help students build the background knowledge and vocabulary critical to listening and reading comprehension. Students learn by listening to nursery rhymes, fables, classic tales, and nonfiction texts. While teaching skills in reading, writing, listening, and speaking, the course also builds students’ knowledge and vocabulary in literature, history, geography, and science.