Curriculum Handbook

Being a Reader is a research-based early reading curriculum for grades K-2 designed to both teach foundational skills and foster engagement with and love of reading. Being a Reader systematically develops both early reading competencies and comprehension through whole-class, small-group, and independent work lessons.

Being a Reader utilizes the following structures: 

• Differentiated Small-Group Instruction – Giving every teacher the ability to differentiate Tier 1 instruction so students receive the support they need to develop as readers at their own pace.
• Whole-Class Instruction – Learning together with fully articulated instruction in shared reading, handwriting, letter names, independent work, and word study, depending on grade.
• Independent Work Rotations – Designed to provide opportunities for students to practice what they are learning in whole-class and small-group lessons.Independent work also provides students with choice and fosters self-efficacy.
• Authentic Reading Experience – Lessons are based around high-quality children’s literature, and students have opportunities to apply their learning to texts at their appropriate reading level.
• Intentional alignment with SIPPS (Systematic Instruction in Phonological Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words) intervention – Being a Reader and SIPPS were designed to work together seamlessly in a powerful multi-tiered approach for readers moving between Tiers 1 and 2 in the RTI/MTSS framework (Response to Intervention-Multi-Tiered System of Support).
• Systematic Decoding Instruction – Explicit and systematic lessons develop phonological awareness, spelling-sound relationships, decoding, and sight word knowledge that  build the foundation for accuracy and automaticity that lead to fluent reading and comprehension.
• Integrated Social and Academic Development – Research shows that developing social competencies prepares students to be productive contributors to learning experiences and increases their capacity to learn.
• Meaningful Assessments – Being a Reader offers a comprehensive set of formative and summative assessments that are designed to help teachers make informed decisions about instruction and track student progress throughout the year.

Being a Writer provides a full year of research-based whole-class writing instruction for grades K–6. Using a workshop model, the Being a Writer program teaches the writing process while developing intrinsic motivation for the craft of writing through immersion in the narrative, informational, and opinion/argumentative writing genres. Instruction encourages students to write regularly with passion and intent as it builds an understanding of and appreciation for the skills and conventions of writing.

Creating classroom experiences that develop a love of writing and allow children to express their thinking requires thoughtful, intentional instruction. Being a Writer provides this instruction by interweaving academic and social skill development. Teachers facilitate student discussion, provide a model for the respectful exchange of ideas, and help students develop their own voices. With Being a Writer, students learn to love writing and grow through the grades as writers, thinkers, and principled people, and teachers hone their skills, both as teachers of writing and as writers themselves.

Being a Writer utilizes the following: 

• Read-Alouds: Read-alouds of exemplary writing stimulate the students’ imaginations and fuel their motivation to write. The read-alouds also allow students to hear, read, and discuss good examples of each genre. Lessons include shared and modeled writing and opportunities for students to share their writing with their peers.

• Independent Practice and Conferring: Every Being a Writer lesson includes Writing Time and conferring. Writing Time is a period of sustained writing when students work independently on authentic writing tasks for various purposes and audiences. In Being a Writer, students have a great deal of choice about what to write—even when writing about assigned topics, they draw on their unique experiences and interests to address those topics.

• Language Skills and Conventions-Students’ motivation to learn the conventions of written English grows out of their desire to communicate clearly with their readers in their published pieces. The Being a Writer program embeds instruction of skills and conventions into shared or modeled writing experiences after students have had ample time to draft their ideas. Mini-lessons covering standards-aligned skills are provided for grades 1–6 in the Skill Practice Teaching Guide, with practice activities in an accompanying Student Skill Practice Book.

• Assessment- Being a Writer assessment tools are designed to help teachers make informed instructional decisions as they teach the lessons and track their students’ writing and social development over time. Being a Writer assessments help teachers

  • recognize individual students’ strengths as well as areas for improvement
  • prepare students for standards-based, end-of-year writing performance tasks 
  • evaluate students’ mastery of grade-level skills and conventions (grades 1–6) 

• Students have mathematical ideas. The curriculum supports all students in developing and expanding those ideas.
• Teachers are engaged in ongoing learning about mathematics content, pedagogy, and student learning. The curriculum supports them in this learning.
• Teachers collaborate with the students and curriculum materials to create the curriculum as enacted in the classroom. The curriculum provides a clear, focused, and coherent mathematical agenda and supports teachers in implementing in a way that accommodates the needs of their particular students.

• Daily opportunities for formative assessment (i.e. Observing the Students at Work). 

• Checklists to track information about the Mathematical Practices and about Benchmarks that can best be assessed via observation (K-5)

• Brief Quizzes every 8-10 sessions that familiarize students with a variety of test question formats (1-5);
• Embedded assessments that ask students to show and/or explain their work (1-5).
• Assessment Teacher Notes accompany embedded assessments, and provide analysis of student work that meets, partially meets, or doesn’t yet meet the benchmark, as well as suggestions for what to do with students in the latter two categories

• Most sessions have some combination of activity-specific intervention, extension, and/or ELL suggestions. 
• An additional Intervention, Practice, and Extension activity is also included at the end of each Investigation (1-5)
• Spanish Companion provides teacher dialogue in Spanish.

• Daily morning and closing meetings: Students learn about one another and learn to work together in productive ways. 

• Weekly random student pairings: Students learn to work and solve problems with many different kinds of people, deepening their awareness of and respect for diverse points of view. 

• Weekly class meetings: Students address concerns and current issues. In the process, they learn to understand issues from each other’s perspectives, develop empathy for how others are feeling, and reach agreement as a class. 

• Weekly Friday choice time: Students have a chance to work with others on their choice of engaging activities. 

• Frequent use of cooperative structures: With ‘Turn to your partner’ and ‘Heads Together’ students have the time, opportunity, and structure to explore meaningful and engaging ways to work with others. 

• Regularly creating and supporting intra-class relationships: Students get to know older and younger buddies and people who work at the school. 

• Weekly Home Connection activities: Students talk with family members about the social development focus of the week. 

Classroom management and discipline: Teachers and students develop proactive skills to support students in managing their own behavior before there is a problem.