- Prioritizing access to high-quality, grade-level texts. The EL Education curriculum is designed to engage students in reading, thinking, talking, and writing about engaging grade level texts on meaningful topics, and this remains a core design principle when designing for the remote or hybrid learning environment.
- Placing the teacher at the center of the educational experience for students. Students may have been disconnected from the school community due to school closures and remote learning. Placing the teacher at the center of the educational experience will help reconnect students to the school and the school community.
- Prioritizing small group differentiation to accelerate learning and address specific student needs.
- Offering flexibility to step between remote learning and classroom-based curriculum instruction to support as many potential schedules, and eventualities, as possible.
Recommendations for Curriculum Implementation: 2021-22
Last Updated: September 23rd, 2021
The following recommendations were developed for the implementation of the EL Education Grades K-8 Language Arts Curriculum for the 2021-22 school year.
This guidance will support students whether they are experiencing remote learning, a hybrid approach, or are full-time in the classroom.
Guiding Principles for Recommendations
Address Reading Foundational Skills During Small-Group Differentiation
- At Grades K-2 during the Skills Block, students should continue to receive both whole group instruction at their grade level and small-group differentiation. This will require that the Benchmark Assessments are administered to all students at the beginning of the year to determine student microphases, and to group students accordingly.
- At Grades 3-5, we recommend students receive small group differentiated instruction during the ALL Block. Particularly in Grade 3, we recommend administering the Benchmark Assessment to determine student microphases. If there are a significant number of students testing within the microphases, we recommend identifying a microphase around which a large number of students are clustered for whole group instruction. This instruction can be facilitated either by the teacher using the Skills Block lessons or using the K-2 Skills Instructional Videos (Grade K, Grade 1, Grade 2). The remaining time should then be used for small group differentiation providing students who are significantly below grade level with more frequent opportunities to work with the teacher (i.e. each day) than students closer to working on grade level. When working with small groups, we recommend using the Decodable Reader Routines.
- When students are working independently of the teacher, they can watch the Skills Flex videos for their specific microphase for additional instruction. They can also read independently and use the reading prompt bookmarks from the ALL Block (found in Module 1, Unit 2, Week 1, Day 2) to complete an independent task.
- ALL Block task cards from Module 1, Unit 2 and beyond can also be utilized for students to work on when working independently of the teacher. This also applies to students who test out of the microphases and therefore do not require additional Skills Block instruction.
- Once a significant number of students in the class have tested out of the microphases and a majority of students are ready to begin the ALL Block rotations, facilitate Module 1, Unit 1 of the ALL Block as this will introduce students to the components and rotations. Then move into the appropriate module and unit of the ALL Block according to where students are working in the module lessons.
Assessment Recommendations and Rationale
General K-8
Avoid administering additional assessments on top of the Skills Block Benchmark Assessments and current grade level formative and summative assessments, due to student stress. The Skills Block Benchmark Assessment, and the formative and summative assessments in the current grade level materials will reveal where students require more support.
Grades K-3
- Administer the Skills Block Benchmark Assessments at the beginning of the year to ensure students are grouped to meet their specific microphase needs.
Virtual Instruction Guidance
Welcome to EL Education's Virtual Instruction Guidance! In our development of the Flex Curriculum for the 2020-21 school year, clear patterns of instruction emerged within our curriculum that needed specific guidance for accomplishing in a virtual environment.
While exploring this guidance is not required to successfully implement the EL Education K-8 Curriculum, we highly recommend it as this represents the distilled guidance of EL Education for using our curriculum in a virtual classroom environment. These general principles represent our approach to Virtual Instruction for the various components of the EL Education Literacy Curriculum.