Early Elementary Program 

Word is our creative writing program. Teachers encourage students to share their imaginative ideas through drawing and writing. Teachers coach each child through the process of representational drawing, letter recognition, sound-symbol correspondence, letter formation, and handwriting. Students develop word recognition skills by reading words that they have previously generated to the teacher and classmates. As children become more independent, they use best guess spelling to write phrases and sentences that express their central idea and are often able to move into writing stories and personal narratives. Children at this level work with a teacher to edit their stories with attention to vocabulary, punctuation and grammar. Teachers then guide students to revise by adding detail and checking to be sure the story makes sense. Children are expected, and are typically delighted, to share what they have written with classmates.