Curriculum

It is the mission of TUSD to ensure that each student optimizes individual achievement through an educational system characterized by challenging and exciting curricula and inspiring personalized instruction. To achieve this mission, balanced literacy is a structure utilized across TUSD classrooms to ensure that children are provided with multiple opportunities to interact with reading and writing in meaningful ways. The structures serve as a foundation, however the teaching that takes place within each component is the critical element. The signature practices of reading workshop and writing workshop are essential components for supporting children at various levels of proficiency, and classroom libraries serve as the hub for reading materials, as children are matched appropriately with books that align to their individual reading level.

LITERACY

Using the Units of Study,K-5 by Lucy Calkins for both Reading and Writing instruction teachers draw on literacy expertise and lessons gleaned from decades of research, curriculum development, and working shoulder-to-shoulder with students, teachers, This reading and writing curriculum incorporates the following:

• state-of-the-art tools and methods to help students move up the ladder of text complexity
• build foundational reading skills and strategies
• support the teaching of interpretation, synthesis, and main idea
• offer classroom structures to support inquiry and collaboration
• provide all the teaching points, mini lessons, conferences, and small-group work needed to teach a comprehensive workshop curriculum
• include resources to help teachers build and evolve anchor charts across each unit
• help teachers use learning progressions to assess students’ reading work, develop their use of self-monitoring strategies, and set students on trajectories of growth
• give teachers opportunities to teach and to learn teaching while receiving strong scaffolding and on-the-job guidance.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

ELD instructional support is grounded on rigorous standards and engaging instructional strategies. These standards, as they apply to ELD, are described in the CA ELA/ELD Framework. The framework emphasizes the need for students to develop the skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language across all content areas. Equally as important, it includes strategies that teachers can implement to help students cultivate these skills. These instructional approaches are elaborated upon by grade level in the key themes of the framework through an integrated approach during balanced literacy instruction and during designated instruction utilizing McGraw Hill’s Wonders Curriculum materials.

• ELA/ELD Framework http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/rl/cf/elaeldfrmwrksbeadopted.asp

• ELD Standards and Resources http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/el/er/eldstandards.asp

MATHEMATICS

Houghton Mifflin Math Expressions is TUSD’s K-5 adopted curriculum resource. Teachers utilize these materials in coordination with our district pacing guide to deliver a standards-based , research-proven curriculum rooted in traditional algorithms, conceptual understanding, inquiry and real-world experiences. Teachers also incorporate Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) methods into their instructional design in order to build deeper mathematical understanding. CGI is an educational philosophy applied to mathematics that is based on 20 years of research and focuses on mathematical problem solving. At the core of CGI is the practice of listening to children's mathematical thinking and using it as a basis for instruction. Research based frameworks of children's thinking in the domains of addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, base-ten concepts, multi-digit operations, algebra, geometry and fractions provide guidance to teachers about listening to their students.

http://www.corestandards.org/Math/

SCIENCE/STEM

Next Generation Science Standards for Today’s Students and Tomorrow’s Workforce: Through a collaborative, state-led process managed by Achieve, new K–12 science standards have been developed and are rich in content and practice. They are arranged in a coherent manner across disciplines and grades to provide all students an internationally benchmarked science education. The NGSS is based on the Framework for K–12 Science Education developed by the National Research Council.

TUSD began implementation of the standards in 2016-17. Teachers are utilizing lessons and content from STEMScopes that provides units in the areas of physical, earth and life sciences.

To read the standards, go to: http://www.nextgenscience.org/