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    Many exciting revisions to the English Language Arts (ELA) program have occurred in the past few years as a result of the State's implementation of the PA Core (PAC) Standards and research on Structured Literacy.

    We start the school year with refined ELA standards based report cards that closely aligns the core instruction across all of our classrooms and address the higher level thinking promoted by the PAC. In addition, we have aligned our writing rubrics to meet K-12 expectations and bring great consistency to the learning progressions in the Narrative, Informational, and Opinion/Argument modes.
     

    Elementary

    In OJR Elementary Schools all of our students are readers; however, some are Emergent, Early/Beginning, Transitional, or Fluent Readers. Knowing what type of reader our students are helps us to match appropriate instruction and celebrate student accomplishments. Student motivation, desire, and confidence in reading ability is essential to any successful reading and writing program. We look forward to building up our readers and engaging them in authentic literacy experiences, increase reading volume and analysis, provide extended writing opportunities, and application of reading/writing for success in the digital age (formerly referred to as 21st Century Skills).

    Emergent Readers - are learning letters, sounds, tracking, and concepts about print. Instruction will include word play, poetry, echo/choral reading, letter/sound sorts, and dictated writing.

    Early/Beginning Readers     - are learning sight words, decoding CVC pattern (short vowels) and CVCe (long vowels), writing phonetically, and reading simple stories with teacher support. Instruction will focus on word work based on text-based patterns, sight words from stories students read, increased daily reading and writing times, word play, and rereading for fluency.

    Transitional Readers - are gaining more confidence in reading, and can handle increased text complexity (idioms, dialogue, etc.). Instruction will focus on helping the reader monitor and clarify their thinking through the orchestration of reading strategies.

    Fluent Readers - are reading and writing to learn, while also navigating increasingly more challenging text structures and text interpretations. Instruction will focus on the reader analyzing texts, synthesizing ideas across texts, and evaluating/critiquing traditional and digital texts.

    Reading, Writing, and Word Study are taught through an integrated Balanced Literacy model. For more details on the ELA K-6 program, please view the K-6 ELA Parent Guide (In revision24-25) to the ELA Program.

    K-6 ELA curriculum can be viewed on the Elementary Curriculum page.
    K-6 ELA Standards Based Report Card Rubrics can be viewed on the Standards Based Report Card page.