Visit Site

Contact:

Phone: 503-936-1837

Curriculum Design

Overall design and approach to our curriculum

EL Education’s K-5 curriculum provides everything needed to teach and assess ELA standards, engages students in meaningful content, helps students become strong learners and people, and empowers them to create high-quality work that matters. The curriculum is designed to build knowledge through content-rich literary and informational texts, academic vocabulary embedded activities, and evidence-based reading and writing activities. Our curriculum provides detailed lessons for each day of the year. We offer guidance on how to execute those lessons effectively. When designing the K-5 Module Lessons, the principles of backward design were employed and created a framework called the Four T’s. The Four T’s interact dynamically at every level of a module to support students to learn about the world, master standards, become proficient and confident readers and writers, and produce work that matters.  (See Design Principles + Overview Visual)

Evidence-based practices or research that guided the development of our curriculum

Content-based literacy is an approach to helping students build literacy as they learn about the world. Research shows that the deeper the content knowledge a student has, the more they are able to understand what they read, and are able to speak and write clearly about that content. This proficiency transfers to the next occasion for reading and learning, creating an upward surge that builds on itself and is both highly rewarding and motivating (Baldwin, Peleg-Bruckner, and McClintock (1985); Cervetti, Jaynes, and Heibert (2009); Kintsch and Hampton (2009); McNamara and O’Reilly (2009). (See Attachment for Research Overview,  Evidence-Based Examples)

EL Education is rooted in the Science of Reading and ensures by the end of grade 2, students acquire the depth of skills they need in the Reading Foundations standards to navigate grade-level text independently (See Micro-Phase Alignment to Foundational Skills; See Where SOR Lives in our curriculum)

Components included in our curriculum by grade level

The following codes are used to identify the priorities. If a component is not included in a particular grade-level, N/A will be displayed in that cell.

• C = Core Universal Component
• T = Targeted Support/Intervention for some students
• I = Intensive Support/Intervention for few students
• X = Not addressed

Unaddressed components in our curriculum for any given grade-level and supplements to meet the DDOE definition of K-3 HQIM

The C/T marking in some cells indicates that component of the curriculum is both a Universal Core Component and Targeted Support/Intervention for some students. Teachers provide intervention for decoding and encoding skills with the research-based Reading Foundations Skills Block curriculum. Students achieving below grade level in grades 3–5 receive this intervention support in the ALL Block, during which time teachers have access to tiered interventions for literacy skills as well as the Reading Foundations Skills Block. These materials contain differentiation packs for teachers to use with students reading both below and above grade level.

How our curriculum is aligned to the science of reading

Each grade level contains an explanation of each component. If a component is not included in a particular grade-level, “N/A” will be displayed.

For more information on the Science of Reading and the EL Education Curriculum view The Science of Reading at the Heart of the Curriculum.

How our curriculum aligns with the common core state standards and shifts

Authored by EL Education, our K—8 Language Arts curriculum and materials are aligned to all English Standards of Learning. Each lesson is intended to be a sequence of activities that cumulatively address the aligned standards. Each lesson clearly identifies Reading, Writing, Language, and Speaking and Listening standards; College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies; and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Our K–5 curriculum explicitly teaches and formally assesses all English Standards of Learning. The curriculum map is the single best source to understand the year’s work in the module lessons for each grade level: a detailed view of the scope and sequence of the modules showing module titles, topics, targets, and standards explicitly taught and formally assessed in each module.  (See Common Core State Standards Alignment, DE Standards Alignment, Curriculum Map K-2, 3-5)

How our curriculum support students’ achievement of grade-level content

Our curriculum prizes and elevates original student thinking, student voice, and student work. This curriculum asks students to grapple with worthy texts and tasks, participate in scholarly discourse, and engage in critique of their written work to build quality and ownership. Ultimately, supporting them to become leaders of their own learning. El Education’s K-5 curriculum promotes a three-dimensional view of student achievement—mastery of knowledge and skills, character, and high-quality student work—that offers a vision for education we would want for every child and provides the “north star” for all of our curriculum work.

Embedded supports included in the curriculum for students with diverse learning needs

Tools and scaffolding that support all learners and flexibility in the ways information is presented, the ways students respond, and the ways students are engaged are embedded throughout the curriculum based on universal Design for Learning. Our curriculum provides supports and resources for differentiated, which allows teachers to provide for students with disabilities as well as those that may need academic extensions. extensive supports for English language learners (ELLs), such as Language Dives, are woven into every lesson to give students full access to the curriculum. Beyond these pillars of the design, considerations for differentiation are offered throughout the curriculum to best support all students. In the Module Lessons, the Teaching Notes, Supporting English Language Learners, Universal Design for Learning, and Meeting Students’ Needs sections provide guidance.

Language Dives allow all students to have access to the same rich, grade-level complex texts. Language Dives help students pay close attention to particularly rich sentences with compelling content and/or complex language structures. During a Language Dive, the teacher and students slow down for 10–20 minutes to have a conversation about the meaning, purpose, and structure of a compelling sentence from a complex text, or from a learning target, checklist, or rubric included in the curriculum. Following the engaging deconstruct-reconstruct-practice routine of the Language Dive (see below), students play with the smallest “chunks” of the sentence, acting them out, rearranging them, or using them to talk about their own lives. As a result of paying close attention to how language works, all students begin to acquire the necessary facility with academic English, and English Language Learners/Multilingual Learners (ELLs/ MLs) foster their overall language ability.

Language Dives:

• help students deconstruct and reconstruct academic sentences and independently create their own;
• help native English speakers gain deeper insight into their native language;
• maximize language development for Multilingual Learners, especially long-term English learners, as they listen to and interact with native English speakers and other Multilingual Learners; and
• build both habits of mind and character as students have metacognitive conversations about language.

Curriculum Topics

Alignment of Curriculum to Curricular Aims as Outlined in Delaware Law

Open Up Resources’ curriculum is committed to extending the study of Black History. Through the curriculum editing and revising process, growth for additional ways to prepare students to be responsible citizens in a pluralistic democracy while examining the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and intolerance.

• Examines the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and intolerance
• Prepares students to be responsible citizens in a pluralistic democracy
• Reaffirms the commitment to free peoples to the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

We’re committed to active, engaged, and purposeful learning at all grade levels, anchored by compelling, content-based modules. Our K–5 curriculum is divided into two grade bands to best meet the unique developmental and academic needs of students in Grades K–2 and 3–5, respectively. By the time students reach Grades 3–5, we build in more frequent opportunities for them to build independence and mastery, reflect on and take ownership of what and how they are learning, and connect their learning to real issues in the world related to social justice, human rights, and protecting the Earth.

See Text Complexity Analysis for  Grade K, Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3, Grade 4, Grade 5, // See Module Topics K-5 // DEI Tables  // Required Trade List & Recommended Trade Lists

• See the (I) Independent Selections List Here The highlighted grey trade books are the anchor texts (core), followed by supplemental text (white) then the “recommended/independent reading” is included in the link above. The module topics are built around the K-5 Recommended Texts and Other Resources Lists.  The complex texts that students read closely and additional texts to ensure students read a “volume of reading” on the topic at their independent reading level.

Minimum Requirements Included in Grade K-3 Curriculum

C=Core, S=Supplemental, I=Independent

Professional Learning

What competency-based professional learning our organization offers on our curriculum

Each grade level contains an explanation of each component. If a component is not included in a particular grade-level, “N/A” will be displayed.

How our professional learning is aligned to Delaware’s definition of high-quality professional learning

Supports the impactful implementation of high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) aligned to Common Core Standards. These HQIM have received the highest rating from EdReports, receiving a score of meets expectations for alignment and usability. The HQIM is predicated on the belief that all students are capable of growth, attainment, and success in school and beyond. It is strengths-based, leverages students’ assets, and provides scaffolds to support all students in reaching grade-level standards by year’s end.

How our professional learning is grounded in Learning Forward’s Standards for Professional Learning

EL Education’s PL theory of action aligns with Learning Forwards Professional Standards, embedded with equity and human-centered design principles. EL believes HQIM+HQPL supports educator growth in excellent service and equitable outcomes across our three dimensions of student achievement- mastery of knowledge & skills, high-quality student work, and character. Participants will engage as a community, explore a research-based, equity-centered approach, enhance their knowledge while contextualizing their learning, evolving their practice and impact as equity-centered educators.

SB4 requires that the competency-based professional learning provided to educators on reading instruction be provided during the school day. How our professional learning can be facilitated through a coaching model

A key offering in EL Education’s professional learning scopes of service is school-based coaching for teachers. During these sessions, an EL Education curriculum expert joins a school based leadership team to: align on walkthrough indicators (classroom ‘look fors’), observe instruction in action, and lead individual coaching sessions (with teachers) or a debrief session (with the leadership team) to determine trends to inform ongoing PL cycles in alignment with the school/district’s strategic goals.

EL Education provides a robust suite of Professional Development supports for all stakeholders in a school or district system. There is a menu of workshop experiences, called Institutes, that are delivered in a variety of methods (i.e. virtual, in-person, asynchronous). The content of these sessions is adapted and tailor-made for the unique needs of schools and districts. During PD sessions, teachers, coaches, and leaders learn about, unpack, and prepare to teach the K-8 Language Arts curriculum through highly engaging, inquiry-based practices developed to best support adult learners’ need for autonomy and self-direction.

Additionally, we provide on-site coaching (either in-person or virtual), using various walkthrough tools to monitor implementation progress and collect data that feeds ongoing instructional coaching cycles across all stakeholder groups. We work with leaders and coaches to provide feedback to teachers; at times, work with teachers in small groups or individually if the partner desires. We have an online platform, Dimensions, that partners can use to access our walkthrough tools throughout the school year. We strategically plan with our partners to craft work plans that include: goals for implementation aligned with the school/district’s vision for literacy and equity; key milestones for measuring student and teacher growth; and explicit definitions around the ways that EL Education will partner throughout the school year, across all stakeholder groups, to ensure successful year(s) of implementation.

A typical coaching day starts with EL Education connecting with the school or district leader to anchor the agenda for the day and check in on curriculum implementation. The EL Coach reviews the work plan, analyzes data, observes classroom instruction, and provides targeted next steps between coaching days. EL Education also offers a curated list of PD offerings for schools and districts that are facilitated by EL Education Staff Members. All virtual, hybrid, or in-person coaching days are situated within a broader instructional coaching cycle that relies on teacher practice data + student data/ student work to determine coaching priorities and next steps in alignment with the school/district work plan.

Coaching Services:

• Strategic Planning (school/district leadership team)
• Implementation Monitoring and Data Collection (school/district leadership team)
• Curriculum Launch Institutes (teachers/coaches/leaders)
  • Preparing to Teach Institutes: Unpacking and Internalizing the Modules (teachers/coaches)
• School-based Coaching
• Instructional Coaching Crew (coaches)
• Quarterly Leadership Coaching (building leaders)
• Customized PLCs
• Networked Improvement Communities

Self-Guided Online Courses:

• Introduction to EL Education’s K-8 Language Arts Curriculum, Intended Audience: Teachers and Instructional Coaches
• Leading Implementation of EL Education’s K-8 Language Arts Curriculum, Intended Audience: School and District Leaders
• Supporting K-2 Reading Foundations Skills Block, Intended Audience: K-2 Teachers and Instructional Coaches
• Supporting the 3-5 Additional Language and Literacy Block, Intended Audience: 3-5 Teachers, Instructional Coaches
• EL Education’s Curriculum Walkthrough Calibration, Intended Audience: Walkthrough Team (to include school/district leaders, coaches, teachers)
• Phonics Basics, Intended Audience: K-2 Teachers and Instructional Coaches
• Fostering Character in a Collaborative Classroom, Intended Audience: K-5 Teachers, Instructional Coaches
• Vocabulary Instruction in EL Education’s K-8 Language Arts Curriculum Language Arts Curriculum,  Intended Audience: K-8 Teachers, Instructional Coaches
• Strengthening Writing through Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback, Intended Audience: K-5 Teachers, Instructional Coaches

Virtual and Blended Signature Events:

• Implementing Toward Impact: EL Education K-8 Language Arts Curriculum (virtual), Learner Pathways: K-2 Teacher, 3-5 Teacher, 6-8 Teacher, Instructional Coach/Lead Teacher, Leaders
• Implementing Toward Impact: EL Education Reading Foundations Skills Block (blended), Learner Pathway: K-2 Teacher or Instructional Coach
• Implementing Toward Impact: EL Education K-8 Language Arts Curriculum (blended), Learner Pathways: K-2 Teacher, 3-5 Teacher, 6-8 Teacher, Leaders

How we demonstrate that educators have not only completed the required professional learning called for in the legislation, but that teacher practice has positively changed in order to improve student literacy

EL Education uses a comprehensive walkthrough tool to monitor the quality of implementation with integrity and consistency across a school/district. Many indicators on this tool address teacher practice and high leverage instructional practices, a key focus in teacher PD. As EL Education experts support leaders and coaches with collecting implementation data via frequent learning walks, leaders are able to monitor teacher practice gains and improvement. Additionally, EL Education provides attendance data for PL events.

EL Education’s Language Arts Curriculum and paired HQPL is rooted in the science of reading and is a comprehensive approach to literacy instruction that supports students in knowledge-building and joyful participation in the world of text. Our PL supports participants in both understanding and applying the science-based instructional practices that are central to our curriculum products:

• The EL Education K–2 Reading Foundations Skills Block (Skills Block): This phonics-based curriculum is grounded in reading science. It helps students crack the alphabetic code, become fluent readers, and, ultimately, comprehend text.
• The EL Education Content-Based Literacy Modules (Modules): This knowledge-building curriculum uses trade books, authentic literature, and high-interest texts to support students in becoming critical thinkers and skilled readers and writers

Our PL supporting the implementation of the Skills Block, a curriculum steeped in the science of reading that strengthens their “orthographic mapping” skills,  provides foundational information on the structured literacy approach grounded in the Phase Theory of Dr. Linnea Ehri, one of the nation’s foremost experts on how the brain maps sounds and letters. Within PL educators explore the four phases that describe behavior related to the types of letter-sound connections students are able to make as they learn to read and write.The Skills Block PL provides explicit instruction on the building blocks of written language, including:

• Guiding students to hear and manipulate units of oral language, or phonemic awareness, the foundation of all reading instruction.
• Supporting students through structured and systematic phonics instruction as they develop associations of sounds with spelling patterns.
• Proactively teaching and assessing automaticity, or fluency, for both reading and spelling.

In our PL supporting the implementation Modules, educators build their understanding of and prepare to leverage the HQIM to support students in developing deep expertise through highly motivating topics. Educators both build background knowledge on and prepare to implement/deepen implementation of the modules, which span 8-9 weeks, and center an anchor text and related books on a single topic. The Read-Think-Talk-Write cycle is embedded throughout and explicitly taught within our PL, with an application-driven lens.

Our value proposition and the  principles that undergird EL Education’s curriculum-aligned PL are:

• Engage: Engage and create community, a culture of Crew, to build the foundation for collaborative and co-constructed learning experience–Educators will collaborate, co construct knowledge and build community within our PL
• Explore: Explore and experience research-based best practices that support cultivating the conditions for educational equity–Educators will examine HQIM and build an understanding of why, what, and how of curriculum implementation within our PL
• Enhance: Enhance your knowledge and contextualize your learning through self-directed learner pathways--Educators will connect learning to their current context and prepare leverage HQIM and implementing with integrity to accelerate student achievement within our PL
  Evolve: Evolve as an educator, planning steps in your journey, planning your next steps toward excellent and equitable outcomes across 3DAs–Educators complete application-driven tasks, demonstrating their understanding and monitoring progress towards quality implementation and impact

Within EL Education’s professional Learning we hold  to the standards of quality for professional learning and model best practices for students. Throughout our PL experiences, we support educators in tracking their own progress towards clearly defined competencies named within the PL learning targets and we offer certificates upon PL completion. Learners are supported in demonstrating and tracking their progress toward the acquisition of science of reading knowledge, and all other competencies, through the learning and are provided a certificate to verify their active participation with each PL offering.

For more information on the Science of Reading and the EL Education Curriculum view The Science of Reading at the Heart of the Curriculum

How our Professional Learning attend to the differences in the Science of Reading for students who are Multilingual Learners, specifically students with varied levels of English Proficiency and students being educated in dual language programs

EL Education offers explicit coaching and resources in language dives and other scaffolding activities that support multilingual learners. Focus on text complexity scaffolds and use of grade-appropriate complex text to build background and content knowledge provide support for these learners. EL’s PD resources support teacher practice in these key areas of support.

EL Education’s HQPL provides classroom teachers, reading specialists, ESL specialists, instructional leaders, and anyone working either directly or indirectly with English learners, key information about how English language learner (ELL) instruction:

• Is designed and built into the EL Education Language Arts Curriculum
• The principles of the Science of Reading that underlie it
• How to implement the curriculum toward impact, supporting growth and attainment for all students, including ELLs

Educators participating in our PL are provided information to understand the kinds of supports, materials, and assessments provided to create a coherent support system for ELLs and the tools to support implementation. Specific content coerced within PL includes:

• Content-based language and literacy instruction: Teachers use rich, compelling, challenging instructional material
• Language Dives: Teachers guide students to notice and think about how language is used
• Conversation Cues to promote academically oriented conversations: Teachers guide students to think and talk about important and challenging material
• Levels of language support: Teachers are sensitive to students’ varying language proficiency levels and focus on moving them beyond the middle ranges of language proficiency
• Diversity and inclusion: Teachers acknowledge, celebrate, and incorporate student experience to promote equity
• Writing practice: Teachers give students ample writing practice
• Vocabulary and phrases in context:Teachers help students learn and practice vocabulary and phrases within the context of the topic and text they are using
• Language usage; celebration and error correction: Teachers help students notice effective communication as well as errors in their speech and writing, and students begin to notice their own language usage

Our professional learning supports educators in understanding, concretely, where and how ELLs are supported in the K-2 and 3-5 curricula: Module lessons (K–5), Labs (K–2), and ALL Block (3–5)

Assessments

Our curriculum assesses students’ mastery of grade-level content

Standards-aligned assessments are s a structure or “through-line” of each module/unit (one assessment per unit in Grades K–2 and two per unit in Grades 3–5). The assessments require students to work with text-based evidence. For each assessment, we identified a strategic “bundle” of standards to address. Throughout the entire curriculum, you will consistently see built-in opportunities for students to learn, practice, and get feedback on a standard before being assessed. (See Assessment Overview Example)

The components of our balanced assessment system (universal screeners, diagnostics, and progress monitoring) including frequency of administration during the school year

Our approach to assessment is standards-based, systems and structures are designed to reflect progress on each standard. Teachers are provided resources to assist in mapping out rubrics and collecting data. The curriculum’s performance tasks and checklists assist in scoring student assessments. In the Skills block, there are three types of assessments: benchmark assessments, cycle assessments, and daily “snapshot” assessments suggested in each lesson. (See Assessment System; See Benchmark Assessment Example)

House Bill 304 with HA1 identifies “Universal reading screener” as a tool used as part of a multi-tiered system of support to determine if a student is at risk for developing reading difficulties and the need for intervention and to evaluate the effectiveness of core curriculum as an outcome measure

Explain how your curriculum leverages universal reading screening to measure the following:

1. 1. phonemic awareness,
   2.  phonological awareness, 
   3. symbol recognition, 
   4. alphabet knowledge, 
   5. decoding and encoding skills, 
   6. fluency, 
   7. and comprehension.

• The curriculum provides benchmark and ongoing assessments during the Module Lessons. These provide data to guide instructional planning for supporting students in vocabulary acquisition and comprehension skills. In grades 3–5, the Phonics and Word Recognition assessment provides information to identify students who are at risk or experiencing difficulty in reading. Teachers use this data to meet the needs of these students with targeted instruction during small groups in the Additional Language and Literacy (ALL) Block.
• EL does not have their own universal screener, benchmark testing determines their microphases (foundational skills) – Universal Screeners like dibels can be used with EL education curriculum. Assessments are based on phases of reading and spelling development, which determines whether students are in the Pre-Alphabetic, Partial Alphabetic, Full Alphabetic, or Consolidated Alphabetic phase:
• Benchmark assessments (three times/year) to address all CCSS Reading:
  • Foundational Skills standards (e.g., Phonological Awareness, Fluency, and Spelling)
  • Cycle assessments (weekly1) to assess targeted reading/spelling pattern (cycle assessments begin in kindergarten Module 4)
  • Daily snapshot assessments and exit tickets

Our curriculum will identify students who have a potential reading deficiency, including identifying students with characteristics of dyslexia:

In grades K–2, the Skills Block Benchmark Assessments provide information to identify students who are at risk or experiencing difficulty in reading.

Teachers are able to use this data to inform differentiated small group instruction aligned to students’ phase of reading and writing development.  For students with reading deficiencies, the Skills Block and ALL Block provide differentiated learning for phonemic awareness, mapping phoneme to grapheme, and engaging in multisensory techniques.

Timely data collection and reporting of universal screening is a required curriculum component from House Bill 304 with HA1

1. Identifies the number and percentage of students
2. Disaggregates scores by grade
3. Disaggregates scores by individual school

Assessment tools vary greatly across states, districts, and schools within a district. However, most schools administer:

• Foundational skills assessment, such as AIMS Web, STEP, or a district-created assessment.
• The Assessment Overview, the “Approximate Alignment of Phases and Grade with Levels of Common Reading Assessments” chart shows an approximate correlation (see the K–2 Skills Block Resource Manual). This chart can offer a sense of the approximate range of leveled texts that align with a given microphase and help identify appropriate books for students to use during Accountable Independent Reading.
• The Skills Block explicitly addresses the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Reading: Foundational Skills standards (RF), as well as some Language standards associated with spelling and letter formation (CCSS L2 and L1a). Although this focus is consistent across many structured phonics programs, two things make ours unique:
  1. It is based on the research of Dr. Linnea Ehri, one of the nation’s foremost experts on how the brain maps sounds and letters.
  2. It deeply honors and addresses the needs of primary learners.
• Dr. Linnea Ehri is a Distinguished Professor in the Ph.D. Program in Educational Psychology at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. Her phases of reading and spelling development help us determine students’ progress with decoding and encoding:
  • Pre-alphabetic: Reader is not yet making any alphabetic connections; may recognize some letters (e.g., letters in own name) and environmental print (e.g., “Stop” on stop sign).
  • Partial-alphabetic: Reader is making partial alphabetic connections; beginning to decode and encode consonant/vowel/consonant (CVC) and vowel/consonant (VC) words, but frequently confuses vowels and vowel sounds.
  • Full alphabetic: Reader is making full alphabetic connections; able to decode and encode all regularly spelled, one-syllable words and some multisyllabic words.
• Additionally, in partnership with Dr. Ehri “microphases” were developed, which are a further breakdown of the phases of reading and spelling development into early, middle, and late. This precision gives teachers a more detailed progression of reading and spelling behavior.
• Microphases Here

Professional learning provided to educators on how to use the assessments included in our curriculum

Educators must understand how to use assessments to strategically plan for instruction. The curriculum contains resources to support planning. This session introduces a model for planning from assessments.

• Define what students are being asked to know and do through the lens of an EL assessment
• Explore how to support students by backward planning from an assessment
• Build a plan based on the next module they will teach to support students with mastery based on assessments

Additional professional learning and assessment information