Curriculum

Overview

The Reading Difference is Greengate School

Across a rich and challenging curriculum, students from Kindergarten through 8th grade find encouragement to pursue their talents and interests in math, science, social studies, physical education, and the arts. An active, energetic learning environment fosters discovery, exploration, understanding, and the opportunity for each student to show what he or she can accomplish. 

Multi-Sensory Teaching and Individual Tutoring

At Greengate, teachers actively engage children’s learning through all of their senses. Sight, sound, touch, and taste and smell all have a role to play in the effective acquisition of new skills and concepts and in review. Orton-Gillingham structured, multi-sensory language teaching methods form the basis of daily, individualized tutoring and language lessons for beginning students. Research shows that reading instruction that is explicit, systematic, sequential and cumulative benefits children with reading difficulties (dyslexia). Daily individualized tutoring for all students provides opportunity for crucial practice and review.

Unfortunately, as children with learning differences (LD) struggle to succeed in public or other more traditional private schools, many deal daily with verbal abuse and humiliation from their peers. Even though many of these kids are gifted, students with learning differences can become disheartened, unsure of who they are and what they can do. Whether it’s their inability to complete class work at the same pace as others, the embarrassment they feel when asked to read aloud, or the stigma of being shuffled off to special classes, their self-esteem suffers and it becomes increasingly difficult to motivate them. At Greengate, we help our students learn about the strengths that are typical of dyslexia, as well as self-advocacy skills to help overcome weaknesses. 

Curriculum Guide

Our curriculum is designed to support the strengths of the individual student while offering remediation in areas of weakness. Based on the Orton-Gillingham approach, the academic program is not limited to offering accommodations or modifications to assignments.  Students gain skills and the ability to access the tools necessary to become independent learners.

The following are some features of the instructional program at Greengate:

Homework Policies

Students have the responsibility of completing homework, not parents. Parents should be ensuring that their child attempts each assignment. Before coming to Greengate, most students struggled with completing homework, and it often became a stressful, all night affair that left the child and parents in tears. Greengate teachers assign homework that can be completed independently and successfully. Students know that if they do encounter problems, they are encouraged to advocate for themselves by contacting the teacher prior to 8:00pm for guidance.

School-wide Organization System

Every student has a tabbed notebook and agenda that parents and teachers check daily.  Newsletters, student work, and other correspondence is sent home in the “Wednesday folder”, found in the notebook. Organizational skills are reviewed every morning, as students prepare their materials for the day. All students are taught to use the same heading for papers.

Grades Structure

At Greengate, students are placed in groupings, rather than simply grade divisions. We do consider appropriate developmental placement, but these groupings allow student placements to be determined by a student’s academic strengths and weaknesses, rather than just by chronological age.  

Cursive Handwriting

All students, even those in Kindergarten, are taught cursive handwriting.

Children deserve the best start possible on the road to reading, writing, and math. Greengate School’s Kindergarten Program helps children build proficiency and confidence in beginning reading, spelling and math skills through its carefully targeted and structured multi-sensory approach. Orton-Gillingham trained teachers guide and support students to reading success at each stage of their journey. Whether a child is at risk for reading difficulties or just needs an excellent foundation in reading skills, our Kindergarten Program can be an enormous advantage for success in first grade and beyond.

The program features:

• Direct, structured, multi-sensory instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, letter knowledge, handwriting, and beginning decoding skills.
• Number knowledge and math concept building
• Small groups with a 6 to 1 student-teacher ratio
• Trained Orton-Gillingham teachers
• Fine motor and practical life skills

Our Kindergarten is limited to 6 students per class, with a minimum enrollment of 2

• Children Ages 5 & 6
• Assessment of Learning & Literacy (ALL) is required for admission
• Half–day Schedule: 8:00 to 11:30 Monday – Friday

Kindergarten age children who exhibit these characteristics will especially benefit from Greengate School’s Kindergarten Program:

• A family history of learning problems
• Delayed speech and/or language development
• Persistent “babytalk” and verbal reversals such as pasgetti, aminal, etc.
• Difficulty with rhyming
• Trouble isolating and identifying sounds in words
• Delay in learning sounds and letters
• Little interest in learning to read, but enjoys being read to
• Little interest in learning to write, but enjoys drawing
• Strengths in thinking and reasoning

One of the exciting elements to the joining of Greengate to Randolph School is the expanded opportunities available to Greengate Students. Please visit www.randolphschool.net and explore their Arts and Athletics content. 

For most children, an awareness of the phonological structure of language generally develops gradually over the preschool years and is a key indicator of later success in learning to read.  Research has revealed that approximately 80% of our students with dyslexia have core deficiencies in phonological awareness, which respond well to early intervention and appropriate instruction. Our Jump Start program is designed for Pre-K and Kindergarten age students.

Jump Start to Reading aims to increase:

• letter knowledge
• phonological and phoneme awareness
• book knowledge
• vocabulary and language skills

Our classroom learning environment:

• is language-rich
• is play-based and experienced-based
• involves both center activities and group activities
• provides multiple experiences with books, vocabulary, handwriting, phonological activities, and interaction with adult-guided dialogue and language development
• allows for the creation of Portfolios of children’s writing and work

Who can attend?

Children who:

• are 4 or 5 years old and who have had one year of preschool or kindergarten
• are struggling with learning letter names, sounds, rhyming, and/or general language
• demonstrate average or above-average intelligence
• can work in a group of children with no major behavior issues
• may have a family history of dyslexia or reading problems

When is it?

9:00 am – 1:00 pm daily

4-Week Summer Session: Monday June 11, 2018 – Friday July 6, 2018

What is the cost?

$100 non-refundable registration fee due with registration.

$500 balance due by the first day of class, June 12th.

$600 total