A NOTE FROM
THE PRINCIPAL
We are making a concerted effort to ensure that when our
children leave Denver CSD they are College and/or Career Ready! In August when students return to
classrooms, our English and Language Arts Curriculum will look much different
than it does currently. We are
ramping up our curriculum materials, which will enable us to better meet the
demands of the Iowa Core Curriculum.
We review and update our curriculum regularly to meet the
demands of our ever-changing global society, however every six years; we review
each of our content-area curriculums with a more in-depth focus. This year a leadership team, consisting
of four elementary teachers, myself, and our Curriculum Director Paul Gebel,
spent numerous hours evaluating the “shifts” of the common core. We then evaluated numerous sets of
curriculum materials in addition to the thought of not purchasing materials at
all, and creating our own. In the
end, a unanimous decision was reached to integrate McGraw-Hill’s Reading
Wonders curriculum into our instructional setting, starting the 2013-14 school
year.
Reading Wonders is the ONLY program on the market today that
is built from the ground up to meet the challenges of the Iowa Core. We will teach through a Reading and
Writing Workshop model, while integrating many more non-fiction texts into the
hands of our students. We will
also focus on reading more “closely” and with more emphasis on “text dependent”
questions. Next Fall, we will
teach students to “Read like a Detective!” and to “Write Like an Investigative
Reporter!” I look forward to your
feedback!
If you would like to learn more about our new ELA Curriculum
materials, please visit: http://mhreadingwonders.com
Educationally Yours,
Kim Tierney
Elementary Principal
