W.B. Yeats

The goal of the elementary language arts program is to develop and improve competence in reading, writing, listening, and speaking, and to encourage a positive attitude toward reading and effective use of language.  Instruction should always be meaningful and purposeful so that students see literacy as something worth acquiring. Students should read for pleasure and enjoyment as well as for information.

Instruction should provide the critical experiences that are fundamental to the development of reading and language arts skills.  These skills should be developed through an integrated curriculum that recognizes the interdependence of skills and content.  This approach helps students acquire knowledge by using language and thinking abilities.  Those skills become more refined through the study of content.

The teacher’s role in this program includes instructing, demonstrating, discussing, coaching, discovering, and evaluating.  The students, consequently, become critical thinkers, independent problem solvers, self-monitors, self-evaluators, and goal setters.

The Journeys program published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt provides the primary resource materials for language arts instruction.

• click on the grade level below