Sunday, May 5, 2013

May 2013


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