Language Arts

Reading
We can't learn to swim without swimming, to write without writing, to sing without singing, or to read without reading. If all we did in the independent reading workshop was to create a structure to ensure that every child spent extended time engaged in reading appropriate texts, we would have supported readers more efficiently and more effectively than we could through any elaborate plan, beautiful ditto sheet, or brilliant lecture."
-The Art of Teaching Reading, Lucy Calkins

The curricula at Aspen Academy centers around the philosophical stance of “assessment driven instruction.” In other words, initial, ongoing, and summative assessment of students provides the scope and sequence of lessons.

Assessment is the process of gathering evidence in order to document learning and growth. Ongoing collection of data is inseparable from instruction. Teachers make professional decisions based on assessment. Assessment helps teachers to know students and guide instruction. How do teachers know what to teach unless they first assess students’ background knowledge and experiences?

Before teachers assess what students know and can do, and even before determining when to assess students, deciding why or the primary purpose for the assessment is crucial. There are four basic purposes to assess students:

1.  keeping track
2.  checking up
3.  finding out
4.  summing up

At Aspen Academy, assessing students to “find out” what students know and can do (background knowledge and experiences) is the initial step in “building” instructional plans, and short and long-range goals. Assessment results have important implications for instruction. The primary aim of assessment is to foster learning of worthwhile academic content for Aspen Academy students. Assessment's overall aim is to foster learning of worthwhile academic content for all students, and the most direct way that assessment serves this purpose is through its role in making decisions about curriculum and teaching. In order to teach “just in front of” what students know and can do, assessment outcomes must be used as the basis for all instruction.

In order for assessment to drive instruction, assessment choices must align with the intended purpose for assessment. This alignment requires knowledge and practice. Integrating instruction and assessment also requires coordination.

Students will learn to read and read to learn at Aspen Academy through authentic children’s literature and Reader’s Workshop will provide the framework for reading instruction. Combining children’s literature and Reader’s Workshop will support students’ acquisition of the necessary reading skills and strategies while creating life-long learners that love to read!

Writing

“High on our list is teaching children how to read their own work. We teach them how to read books but not how to read their own writing. Unless we show children how to read their writing, their work will not improve. If we help children take knowledgeable responsibility in reading their own work, we not only help them to be effective lifelong writers, but we shift the responsibility for their writing to them, where it belongs.”
-A Fresh Look at Writing, Donald H. Graves

Teaching the craft of writing to Aspen Academy students can and should be included during reading instruction, just like the craft of writing can and should be taught, practiced, and revisited across the curriculum in all content areas. WHY? Because lifelong learners do not function in isolated segments; real-world situations engage participants in reading, writing, math, social aspects, science, the arts, etc. in multi-functioning, integrated environments/situations. It is our mission as Aspen Academy teachers to help students become the best writers they can be and to empower them to see writing as a useful and necessary lifelong skill. The specific skills leading to proficient writing skills need to be taught, focused on, improved, and integrated in a meaningful and “spiraling” context.

Students will learn to write and write to learn at Aspen Academy, similar to what occurs in reading instruction. Writer’s Workshop will provide the framework for writing instruction and will support students’ acquisition of the necessary writing skills and strategies while creating life-long learners that love to write!