our kindergarten program

Language Arts

Language arts instruction includes instruction in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Modeled, guided, shared, and independent reading concepts and skills are introduced in Kindergarten through the Readers’ Workshop. Guided writing, independent writing, and spelling are introduced through the Writers’ Workshop.

Kindergarten children develop their understanding of the relationship between spoken and written language through a variety of experiences, including organized work in interest areas or “centers,” group and independent tasks, and direct, guided instruction in Readers’ Workshop.

Center work is lively and engaging, and through dramatic play, blocks, table work, art, discovery and sensory tables, and the book nook, teachers promote skill development in phonics, phonemic awareness, oral fluency or comprehension. For example, students in the dramatic play area enacting “restaurant” may be encouraged to “write orders” or create a menu. At a nearby table, other students may be completing games or paper-and-pencil tasks focusing on rhyming words or sound/letter relationships. Readers’ Workshop also allows time for shared and independent reading experiences, with friends reading to one another from the classroom’s rich library, making books, or quietly reading to themselves.

Teachers deliver direct instruction through whole and small groups, providing a variety of lessons to develop phonemic awareness and the understanding of sound/symbol relationships. In the fall, the focus of instruction centers upon hearing and creating rhymes, hearing and naming letter symbols/sounds and beginning to discriminate among beginning, middle and ending sounds. Throughout this time, teachers provide rich classroom libraries and read stories related to project topics. Frequently, teachers instruct the group using big book instruction, which exposes children to beginning reading strategies and comprehension work.

In January, teachers assess each individual, often with support from the school’s reading specialist and learning specialist, to identify the instructional reading level of each student. Small instructional groups are formed at this time, and the teacher meets with each group several times weekly to introduce strategies and skills related to oral reading fluency, comprehension and decoding. Students are assessed at regular intervals or when they demonstrate sudden growth and change of instructional reading level. Throughout the year, in whole and small group instruction, skills and strategies related to graphophonics introduced to all students include: letter recognition; letter/sound correspondence; sound/symbol correspondence; and discrimination among beginning, middle and ending sounds.

The focus of strategies and skills introduced in guided reading typically depend upon the children’s instructional reading level. The strategies and skills are typically introduced in small group settings and organized by instructional levels. In Kindergarten, this typically encompasses:

Emergent stage: develop understanding that print contains message; focus on story meaning; use memory to match spoken and written words; use initial sounds to predict words; use some letter/sound links; use pictures to predict; practice in developing memory for text; learn through modeling and shared reading word identification strategies; phonic knowledge, patterns and syllabification
Early stage: practice reading familiar texts confidently to promote oral fluency; identify different text forms; understand that authors express their own ideas; use of picture clues to check for meaning; begin to use a variety of word identification strategies; phonic knowledge, patterns and syllabification; develop broader sight word bank; expand vocabulary by use and apply a variety of graphophonic strategies; begin to use varied strategies to decode unknown words
Transitional stage: retell and discuss interpretation; become more efficient using strategies to make meaning: predict, self-correct, re-read; reading-on; make meaningful substitutions; increase bank of sight words; broaden vocabulary based on reading of increasingly challenging selections; increase use of word identification strategies; phonic knowledge, patterns, syllabification; develop the ability to identify character traits, setting, main ideas and details

Held several times each week in Kindergarten, Writers’ Workshop provides students opportunities to express themselves through written words and pictures. Teachers use whole group instruction, shared writing and mini-lessons and base their instruction on the text Writing Across the Primary Years (Calkins). Teachers introduce the processes and structure of Writers’ Workshop, the understanding of what a writer does and the ways a writer effectively conveys a message. Writers’ Workshop at this level supports children thinking of themselves as writers. It provides students an opportunity to apply letter sounds and handwriting they have been learning in class and allows them to share stories with others.

Skills and strategies introduced at this level related to productivity and the writing process include: understanding the purpose of writing and generating topics willingly; composing personal writing about events in one’s life; working through portions of the writing process with independence; revise writing by adding details into picture/text
Skills and strategies introduced related to graphophonics include identifying and writing upper and lower case letters; using developmental spelling to build sound/symbol relationships; developing strategies for spelling unfamiliar words
Skills and strategies related to handwriting include an introduction to Handwriting Without Tears manuscript; practicing letter formation kinesthetically through gross and fine motor activities