Reading and Language Arts

Our reading and language arts program is based on Orton Gillingham multisensory instruction.   Children learn to read by a visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic approach.  At Hillside we integrate phonics rules continually throughout the day as students read and write.

Project Read (Language Circle Enterprises)®

Project Read is a logical, systematic program used to teach phonics, spelling, and reading comprehension.  It is based on the direct teaching of concepts through the use of multisensory techniques.  Strategies are taught to the students individually and in small groups.  Instruction techniques move from simple more complex processes in a sequential order from consonants to short vowels, blends and digraphs, r-controlled vowels, long vowels, and dipthongs, then to syllables, words, sentences, and paragraphs.  This instruction enables the students to work from the parts that make the whole in constructing the mechanics of language.  Instruction techniques include seeing, saying, doing, and touching through arm tapping, finger spelling strategies, red letter words, sky writing, tabletop writing, sand/salt trays, flashcards, whiteboards, sentence strips, light boxes and felt squares.

Project Read instruction is scheduled four times a week for 30-minute sessions.  The primary classes are generally self-contained so that instruction can be continued and integrated throughout the day.  Intermediate students are grouped by their individual needs and their prior experience with the program.  Comprehension classes focus on syllabication, outlining, and include enrichment activities using trade books.

* www.projectread.com

Lindamood Bell LiPS® (Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing® Program)

The LiPS program develops phonemic awareness or the ability to identify individual sounds and their order within words for competence in reading, spelling and speech.  Weak phonemic awareness is a cause of decoding and spelling problems.  Students with incompletely developed phonemic awareness make decoding errors like reading “steam” for stream; or spelling errors like “gril” for girl, “cret” for correct; and pronunciation errors like saying “curve” for curb or “flustrated” for frustrated.

The program uses language to label the look and feel of phonemes.  It teaches students to use multisensory information to develop a feedback system that promotes self-correction in speech, reading and spelling.  LiPS begins at an oral level and extends to multisyllabic and contextual levels of reading and spelling activities.  This program is effective with students who are unable to read and spell words to potential, and with students who have been labeled “dyslexic”.

The LiPS program is similar to Orton Gillingham instruction for developing phonemic awareness.  The program begins with discovering how speech sounds are articulated.  LiPS teaches children to identify sounds using the feedback from the positions of lips, tongue and jaw to help discriminate sounds from each other.  Hands-on instruction is incorporated with the use of manipulatives to assist children in combining sounds into words for reading and spelling.

* www.lindamoodbell.com

Benchmark School Word ID/Vocabulary Development Program®

The Benchmark School Word Identification/Vocabulary Development Program is a supplemental program used with a basal readers or trade books.  At Hillside, the program helps students who have visual strengths.  This program benefits students who need to move the sound-letter code and syllables in words together.

Known words, or key words, are used to decode unknown words.  Students learn to identify spelling patterns in words.  When students can identify a-k-e as the spelling pattern in the key word make, they can learn to read any word with the a-k-e spelling pattern.

Through direct teaching, teacher modeling, and guided practice, the students work toward the six goals of the program:

        1.  Use known words to decode unknown words

        2.  Discriminate structural components of words

        3.  Induce how our language is organized

        4.  Recognize the morphophonemic and lexical nature of our language

        5.  Have a set for “diversity”

        6.  Demonstrate automaticity in decoding, independent of context

* www.benchmarkschool.org

Reading in the Content Areas

The reading and writing strategies our students learn are carried throughout the curriculum.  Transferring strategies is a problem for many children.  The teacher makes connections for the child in all the subject areas until the strategies become internalized. 

Reading Centers/Independent Reading

Individualized instruction is a hallmark of the child-centered curriculum at The Hillside School.  For approximately sixty minutes each day, children are instructed in small groups of 1-4 students according to their instructional levels.

The Writing Process

Writing is one of the most complex processes for children.  Writing involves language production, motor skill coordination, memory function, attention, problem solving, organization, generation of thoughts, reading ability, understanding the reader, adapting to varied formats, and revision skills.   Improving writing requires task analysis so that areas of difficulty are identified, demystified and managed to foster progress in writing.  Our students learn strategies by working in stages to produce written output.  Long-term writing activities allow for spacing between stages with collaboration and monitoring by the teacher.  Assistive technologies help students brainstorm ideas, organize their thoughts and produce written work.

The stages of the writing process include the following:

        1.  Prewriting (Plan) - The Prewriting or Planning stage features teacher directed activities like brainstorming,
             using graphic organizers/semantic mapping or organizational software technology, KWL, 5W’s, outlining, 
             and motivational techniques using the five senses or storyboard, with mini lessons that discuss format,
             conventions, and genre.

        2.  Producing a Rough Draft (Initial composition) - The next stage is creating the initial composition or Rough 
             Draft.  Students employ technologies like Co Writer/Write Out Loud, Alpha Smart/Neo portable keyboards, 
             AppleWorks, tape recorders, or Franklin Spellers to create their beginning compositions.   Attention is given 
             to using special formats like visual maps and 3.5/3.8 paragraphs.

        3.  Revising (Review, modify and organize) - The next stage is Revision where students work alone and with 
             the teacher to review, modify and organize their writing.  A teacher-student conference keeps students on
             track with their revisions.

        4.  Editing (Proofread for clarity, conventions, style) - Editing follows the revision stage when students 
             proofread their work for clarity, conventions, and style.  Students learn to use strategies during this stage 
             that encourage them to proofread their work.

        5.  Publishing (Share the writing) - The last stage is Publishing or sharing the writing with others.  The 
             students are given many opportunities to share through illustrations, assembly presentations, portfolio, 
             conferences, school displays or inclusion in permanent school collections.