Gatey Academy

Literacy Framework

How do we teach literacy across the curriculum? What strategies and assessments do we use?

Content area literacy is the ability to use reading and writing to learn new subject matter. Because reading and writing skills are the foundational pieces of academic success, systematic and explicit reading and writing instruction is a central component to each one of our subject areas at Gately Academy. Because many of our students come to us with marked difficulties in these areas, we believe that successful strategies should be taught across the curriculum. Therefore, we believe that each one of our faculty members is a teacher of reading and writing. Across the curriculum students are learning strategies that address study skills, comprehension, vocabulary, writing, and approaches that promote literature use (see appendix for a list of particular strategies). 

A predominant facet of a good literacy program is meaningful and ongoing assessment. If you don’t know your students’ strengths and weaknesses, how will you know what and how to teach them?  This type of integrated teaching/assessment model includes both formal and informal assessments, from observation and anecdotal records to standardized achievement tests such as the Kauffman Test of Educational Achievement, which we administer twice a year. Specific literacy assessments include reading and writing conferences, story construction and retellings, portfolios with holistic and analytic rubrics, IRI’s, cloze procedures, and miscue analysis, which provides a very good window into students’ reading processes. 

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How are the support classes, specifically reading and writing, different than how these two curricular components are taught in the Language Arts program? 

The purpose of our support classes is to specifically address students’ most focal areas of need. We use the same strategies we do in the regular Language Arts blocks, but we practice the strategies using different materials so that the guided practice remains engaging. The support classes also allow the students to practice the applications in a variety of activities and in a more intensive way.

Our reading support classes have two specific focuses based upon our students' area of need. We have a class that focuses primarily on comprehension, and another one that is more geared towards decoding and word attack strategies. We use the Language! curriculum for our decoding and word attack class. This curriculum is an Orton-Gillingham method. This research-based method teaches the relationship of sounds and letters and how they act in words. It shows the students how to attack a word and break it down into smaller pieces. Our comprehension class focuses on the same active reading strategies students learn and practice in our regular Language Arts block.

In the Writing support classes, the areas of study are also determined by the needs of our students. Students rotate through cycles of the writing process in a strategic way so that the skills they learn are constantly building upon one another.

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How do we use the state standards and the grade level benchmarks in our curricular design?

Before completing our yearly curriculum maps, we use the State Standards and Benchmarks as guides to inform our instruction. The standards are useful references both for determining broad student goals (which are then highly individualized), and they also guide assessment by helping teachers determine various levels of success, which is
determined by development and progress. On a school wide level, our curriculum is comparable to what other students across the state are learning, although our adaptations and modifications help make the material more manageable for our student population.

How are we teaching spelling/vocabulary across the curriculum?  What programs do we reference?  Is an isolated spelling/vocabulary program beneficial if it is not connected to the content of the curriculum?

While we do not utilize a specific spelling and vocabulary curriculum, these skills are taught across the curriculum because students learn these skills more easily when they’re taught in the context of what we’re learning. Spelling and vocabulary lists include curriculum-specific words and the words and patterns that are found in students' writing. With both spelling and vocabulary, students benefit from regular practice and revisiting words. See appendix for the specific vocabulary strategies we practice across the curriculum.

What about writing instruction?  What are the expectations of our students when it comes to this focus area?  How do we gauge whether we are meeting our own established objectives?

First and foremost, our writing program aims to develop both the skills and the confidence necessary for our students to become better writers. Our writing instruction is is based around the writing process and moves from rough drafts to publishing. In our classrooms, we strive to make writing both meaningful and relevant to our students by providing authentic writing activities, like journaling and letter writing. We teach both conventions and craft. Our writing lessons are determined by taking a closer look at individual students' writing. Assessment is a continual process based primarily upon student progress and skill development.

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Appendix

Study Skill Strategies:
Comprehension Strategies:
Vocabulary Strategies: 
Writing Strategies:
Literature Strategies:
Discussion Strategies:
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