Boys typically enter school 1-2 years behind their girl peers in language development. In addition, students from low income families typically enter school with significantly less robust vocabulary than their more affluent peers. Reading is the key skill students must master to be on the path to a college future. As a result of these realities, our program focuses first on accelerating the literacy development of our scholars.

In kindergarten and first grade, our scholars receive 180 minutes a day of literacy instruction, including time specifically for vocabulary development, guided reading, direct phonics instruction, and writer’s workshop. Our commitment to our scholar’s literacy development intensifies in second grade – 215 minutes of daily literacy work including vocabulary and comprehension development, guided reading, seminar discussion, and writer’s workshop.

In third and fourth grade, our scholars receive instruction from ELA teacher specialists. Shifting from the typical elementary model, our teachers in third and fourth grade teach specific subjects – ELA, math, history, science – so that they can be experts in that subject and focus their preparation time on providing outstanding instruction. In third and fourth grade, scholars receive 160 minutes of daily literacy instruction for reading comprehension, seminar discussion, and writing.

In addition to ELA and math instruction, we believe a college preparatory education should include the breadth of a typical liberal arts experience. Our scholars receive daily instruction in science, history, visual arts, music, and physical education.

Academic Resources

We provide our teachers with a range of curriculum and supplementary resources so that we can meet the needs of all our scholars. The list below is a partial list of curriculum resources we use:

ELA:  Treasures, McGraw-Hill; Fountas & Pinnell, Guided Reading; Reading Mastery, SRA; Waterford; Writer’s Workshop, Lucy Caukins; Text Talk, Drs. Isabel Beck and Margaret McKeown; Accelerated Reader

Math:  Envisions, Pearson; Fast Math, Scholastic 

Science and History:  Houghton Mifflin Science Series; Houghton Mifflin Social Studies Series