Liberty Academy Curriculum Overview
In order to support the rigorous educational standards set forth by Liberty Academy’s charter, teachers and support staff will utilize a variety of research-based, reliable texts as well as original sources to instruct their students. The administration at Liberty Academy plans to keep at the forefront the objective of “Restoring the American Heritage” by providing students a variety of in-depth studies of the people, places, events and values which have shaped this great nation. A combination of classroom research and field excursions will allow our students to focus on the lessons to be learned from those who’ve gone before and place a personal emphasis on the importance of each student as a contributing citizen of this country.
Many varied curricula are utilized at Liberty Academy to create a well-rounded, comprehensive educational foundation for each student, meeting the curricular goals and objectives of both Liberty Academy and the state of Utah. Our school will be marrying the content of the Core Knowledge curriculum with the benefits of the instructional principles and practices of Expeditionary Learning. This fusion of solid content with dynamic instruction and field experience will personalize the education, allowing them to apply that which they learn into real-life experiences and discovery learning. The following curriculum items have been put in place to help our students reach these goals:
Core Knowledge: (K-8) Core Knowledge is a clear outline of content to be learned grade by grade. This sequential building of knowledge not only helps ensure that children enter each new grade ready to learn, but also helps prevent the many repetitions and gaps that often occur. Core Knowledge is Solid, Sequenced, Specific and Shared, meaning that students will receive instruction that builds upon itself and aids them in becoming culturally and academically literate. This curriculum exposes children to a broad array of topics typically not covered in traditional curriculum programs and builds upon itself grade by grade, gradually getting more and more in-depth.
(For more, see http://www.coreknowledge.org/CK/index.htm)
Expeditionary Learning: (4-12) The Expeditionary Learning Schools (ELS) approach promotes rigorous and engaging curriculum; active, inquiry-based pedagogy; and a school culture that demands and teaches compassion and good citizenship. At the heart of ELS are learning expeditions, which are interdisciplinary units aligned with state and district standards. The ELS approach is experiential and project-based, involving students in original research -- with experts -- to create high-quality products for audiences beyond the classroom. Students are considered to be “crew,” not “passengers” in their educational voyage, which often quite literally means venturing out of the school building into the community and beyond into the wilderness on exciting learning expeditions.
Ten Design Principles are adhered to as teachers and students create their expeditions:
1. The Primacy of Self-discovery
2. The Having of Wonderful Ideas
3. The Responsibility for Learning
4. Empathy and Caring
5. Success and Failure
6. Collaboration and Competition
7. Diversity and Inclusion
8. The Natural World
9. Solitude and Reflection
10. Service and Compassion
Expeditionary Learning provides students with exciting, engaging, relevant and life-long educational experiences while promoting a positive school culture.
(For more, see http://www.elschools.org/index.html)
Shurley English (1-8): Shurley English is a research-based method of grammar instruction involving the use of repetition (Jingles), whole class oral analysis of sentences (Question & Answer Flow) and Sentence Building to the end that each student understands the structure of the English language. This enables students to more easily grasp the Writing Process and create paragraphs and essays. Students are regularly assessed on their grammar and English knowledge.
(For more, see http://www.shurley.com/new/index.jsp)
Riggs: The Writing & Spelling Road to Reading & Thinking (K-3), written by the Institute's founder Myrna T. McCulloch, still teaches the phonetic structure of correct English spelling, which generally has not been taught in Colleges of Education in the United States since the early 30's. Twenty-six letters form the 42 sounds of English speech, using 71 common phonograms (letters and combinations of letters which make a single sound in a given word). These are taught in four weeks, simultaneously with dictated letter formation instructions designed to prevent or correct common reversals and to develop cognitive visual/directional motor skills.
These sound/symbol relationships are then applied in the dictation of 2100+ of the most commonly used spelling words. Forty-seven rules of spelling, plurals and syllabication are stressed along with a memory-aid marking system. This method begins where English-speaking primary level children are in their spoken and comprehensible vocabularies (4000 to 24,000 words) when they begin first grade. The intent is to enable them to spell, write and read what they can already say and understand by the end of grade two.
(For more, see http://www.riggsinst.org/Default.aspx)
Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction (4-12) To expand upon the principles students learn in the Riggs Spelling program, Words Their Way is a leveled spelling program which helps teachers identify a student’s spelling strengths and weaknesses and help them improve upon their spelling ability in any grade.
(For more, see http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_bear_words_3/)
SRA Reading Labs (1-3) This is the classic reading comprehension and vocabulary program. It is leveled and self-paced, allowing individualization of reading practice at school. The students are highly motivated to read the stories and complete the activities and this allows the teacher to work with those who need extra support.
(For more, see http://www.srareadinglabs.com/pages/home.php)
Saxon MATH (K-12) is a strong research-based Math curriculum which teaches a new concept and reviews prior learning in every daily lesson, a concept known as “spiraling.” Saxon's approach breaks complex concepts into simpler increments, recognizing that smaller pieces of information are easier to teach and easier to learn. The instruction, practice, and assessment of those increments are systematically distributed across a grade level. The distributed approach ensures that students gain and retain critical thinking concepts and use them in real-world situations.
(For more, see http://saxonpublishers.hmhco.com/en/sxnm_home.htm)
Liberty Academy will also utilize the Balanced Literacy approach to Language Arts instruction. It is based on the research of Marie Clay, Irene Fountas, and Gay Su Pennell. Children read and write each day independently and in group settings (both large and small). Literacy Collaborative classrooms focus on four different types of reading experiences:
• Reading aloud to children
• Shared reading - whole class
• Guided reading - small group
• Independent reading
Students also participate in shared and individual writing activities each day. The four types of writing experiences are:
• Shared writing - whole class
• Interactive writing - whole class
• Writer's workshop - small groups or individual
• Independent writing
Additionally, during many daily reading and writing experiences, children are taught about letters, sounds, words and how they work. Listening and speaking are also emphasized in this integrated language approach.
Accelerated Reader (K-12) This is an online reading comprehension and vocabulary assessment program which allows students to test their knowledge after reading any of 120,000+ books. It is accompanied by STAR Reading software which aids teachers in identifying individual student reading levels. From the results on the STAR Test, students are assigned a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) which designates the student’s instructional reading level. Students are highly motivated to take a quiz and see how well they remembered details from the books they read.
(For more, see http://www.renlearn.com/ar/)
A+nyWhere Learning System (K-12) New to the school this year will be a powerful program for progress monitoring called A+LS. This program will assist us in gathering data on the progress of our students throughout the year in several subject areas, giving us accurate and frequent snapshots of student learning. A+LS will allow us to have students take a pre-assessment in several of the core subject areas and then, based on the results, prescribe a series of pre-made lessons for the student to study and test on afterwards. This will support our reading, math, and science programs in the all grades as well as offer test prep (CRT, IOWA, UBSCT, SAT, ACT, etc.), credit recovery, and specific subject offerings for our upper grades. The program is entirely computer-based, thereby supporting our students’ interest in and affinity for technology, as well as training them for their computer-based end-of-year testing.
(For more, see http://www.backbonecommunications.com/a-solutions/)
This is a brief overview of the curriculum utilized at Liberty Academy for the 2009-2010 school year.
