St. John the Baptist implements a complete language arts curriculum, based upon a cumulative array of speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. We begin with an emphasis on phonics instruction, progress to word recognition and meaning, and eventually master critical skills in analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of literary text. Students are placed in heterogeneous homerooms, however our reading program has been designed to address the instructional needs of above, below, and on grade level learners. Children are taught to apply their emerging literacy skills in a variety of settings.
Our Reading Specialists works with students in Kindergarten through 4th grade to remediate reading skills.
Our teachers and students make use of DIBELS and Renaissance Learning tools to assess and progress monitor the reading development of our students. Improving student writing across all content areas has been a focus of both our professional learning groups and data collection during the last several years and even our youngest readers participate in the Accelerated Reading program. At the upper grades, students are taught advanced vocabulary material and enjoy both novels and non-fiction materials as part of their reading program.
All students are invited to participate in our Spanish Enrichment program on Friday mornings.