RCS District Curriculum
Curriculum is the organized interaction of students with the district's instructional materials and resources to meet the Illinois Learning Standards. The goal of curriculum is to make sure there is a plan for all of our students to meet their highest potential in attaining these standards.
The New Balanced Literacy School: Implementing Common Core (2015), include the home and community, library involvement, structured classroom plans, read-alouds, guided reading, shared reading, and independent reading and writing. These practices are all student-centered, individualized, and flexible. Additionally, the approach of balanced literacy, as discussed in Dr. Policastro’s (2015) text, “assumes reading and writing achievement are developed through instruction and support in multiple environments” where the goal is not for children to develop a “skill broken into isolated steps, but as a lifelong learning process that promotes higher-order thinking, problem solving, and reasoning.” Because of this need for support in multiple environments, a balanced literacy approach requires a school-wide initiative including students, teachers, administrators, and parents.
The grade-level Lucy Calkins Units of Study in Opinion/Argument, Information, and Narrative Writing, K–8, will:
-
provide all the teaching points, minilessons, conferences, and small group work needed to teach a comprehensive workshop curriculum in opinion/argument, information, and narrative writing;
-
foster high-level thinking through regular chances to synthesize, analyze, and critique;
-
build writing independence and fluency;
-
provide a ladder of exemplar texts that model writing progressions across grades K–8;
-
develop and refine strategies for writing across the curriculum;
-
include strategic performance assessments to help monitor mastery and differentiate instruction.
Guided Reading
Guided reading is a small-group instructional context in which a teacher supports each reader's development of systems of strategic actions for processing new texts at increasingly challenging levels of difficulty. During guided reading, students in a small-group setting individually read a text that you have selected at their instructional reading level. You provide teaching across the lesson to support students in building the in-the-head networks of strategic actions for processing increasingly challenging texts. Through guided reading, students learn how to engage in every facet of the reading process and apply that literacy power to all instructional contexts.
Comprehensive Reading/Language Arts Program
The Benchmark Advance program provides a cohesive K-6 framework for the development of content knowledge over time.
Engaging, multi-genre reading selections, complex read-alouds, decodable texts, differentiated leveled texts, and reader’s theater experiences
are integrated into each three-week unit. Students are immersed deeply in the topic, expanding their academic/content knowledge
and vocabulary as they build literacy and English language skills.
Ready Classroom Mathematics (K–8) is a comprehensive core mathematics program that makes math accessible to all students. Everything works together to support teachers and empower students to connect to mathematics in new ways. The program includes:
-
An instructional design that allows students to take ownership of their learning
-
Rigorous practice opportunities that build students’ conceptual understanding and procedural fluency
-
In-depth reports that enable instructional decisions so teachers can help students reach their greatest potential
​
i‑Ready is a comprehensive assessment and instruction program that empowers educators with the resources they need to help all students succeed. By connecting Diagnostic data and Personalized Instruction, i‑Ready reduces complexity, saves educators time, and makes differentiated instruction achievable in every classroom. i‑Ready:
-
Provides user-friendly dashboards and clear reports with actionable data that give teachers a foundational understanding of students’ strengths and areas of need
-
Enables educators to confidently determine each student’s on-grade level proficiency based on state and national standards
-
Delivers online lessons that provide tailored instruction and practice for each student to accelerate growth
-
Supports teachers with in-the-moment resources for remediation and reteaching at individualized, small group, and whole class levels of instruction
-
Is research-based and proven to work—students who use i‑Ready Personalized Instruction make remarkable learning gains
-
Includes dedicated service and support at every step of the implementation journey through i‑Ready Partners
Science
Mystery Science provides a large number of ready-made science lessons, on subjects from biology to astronomy to geology. Teachers select the lesson they would like to use and simply hit “play.”
Each lesson is organized around a key question (e.g. “What happens when plates move along a fault?”) The lesson starts with a short introductory video, laying out the lesson’s key question. The video is followed by discussion questions for the class. Finally, the lesson ends with a hands-on activity designed to help students find the answer to the key question. Each activity comes with instructions and a list of materials needed.
​
Defined STEM provides relevance between real-world topics and classroom instruction through project-based learning. With credible articles, videos, rubrics, and prompts, Defined STEM also saves teachers valuable time spent lesson planning.
RCS District Curriculum
Curriculum is the organized interaction of students with the district's instructional materials and resources to meet the Illinois Learning Standards. The goal of curriculum is to make sure there is a plan for all of our students to meet their highest potential in attaining these standards.
College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading
The grades K–8 standards define what students should understand and be able to do by the end of each grade. They correspond to the College and Career Readiness (CCR) anchor standards below by number. The CCR and grade-specific standards are necessary complements—the former providing broad standards, the latter providing additional specificity—that together define the skills and understandings that all students must demonstrate.
Key Ideas and Details
1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
Craft and Structure
4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.
6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse formats and media, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.
8. Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.
9. Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
10. Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.
The grade-level Lucy Calkins Units of Study in Opinion/Argument, Information, and Narrative Writing, K–8, will:
-
provide all the teaching points, minilessons, conferences, and small group work needed to teach a comprehensive workshop curriculum in opinion/argument, information, and narrative writing;
-
foster high-level thinking through regular chances to synthesize, analyze, and critique;
-
build writing independence and fluency;
-
provide a ladder of exemplar texts that model writing progressions across grades K–8;
-
develop and refine strategies for writing across the curriculum;
-
include strategic performance assessments to help monitor mastery and differentiate instruction.
Guided Reading
Using the Jan Richardson's Framework, guided reading is a small-group instructional context in which a teacher supports each reader's development of systems of strategic actions for processing new texts at increasingly challenging levels of difficulty. During guided reading, students in a small-group setting individually read a text that you have selected at their instructional reading level. You provide teaching across the lesson to support students in building the in-the-head networks of strategic actions for processing increasingly challenging texts. Through guided reading, students learn how to engage in every facet of the reading process and apply that literacy power to all instructional contexts.
Comprehensive Reading/Language Arts Program
The Benchmark Advance program provides a cohesive K-6 framework for the development of content knowledge over time.
Engaging, multi-genre reading selections, complex read-alouds, decodable texts, differentiated leveled texts, and reader’s theater experiences
are integrated into each three-week unit. Students are immersed deeply in the topic, expanding their academic/content knowledge
and vocabulary as they build literacy and English language skills.
Conscious Discipline is an evidence-based, trauma-informed approach. It is recognized by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s (SAMHSA’s) National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices (NREPP), and received high ratings in 8 of 10 categories in a Harvard analysis of the nation’s top 25 social-emotional learning programs. The Harvard study’s authors say, “Conscious Discipline provides an array of behavior management strategies and classroom structures that teachers can use to turn everyday situations into learning opportunities.”
Ready Classroom Mathematics (K–8) is a comprehensive core mathematics program that makes math accessible to all students. Everything works together to support teachers and empower students to connect to mathematics in new ways. The program includes:
-
An instructional design that allows students to take ownership of their learning
-
Rigorous practice opportunities that build students’ conceptual understanding and procedural fluency
-
In-depth reports that enable instructional decisions so teachers can help students reach their greatest potential
​
i‑Ready is a comprehensive assessment and instruction program that empowers educators with the resources they need to help all students succeed. By connecting Diagnostic data and Personalized Instruction, i‑Ready reduces complexity, saves educators time, and makes differentiated instruction achievable in every classroom. i‑Ready:
-
Provides user-friendly dashboards and clear reports with actionable data that give teachers a foundational understanding of students’ strengths and areas of need
-
Enables educators to confidently determine each student’s on-grade level proficiency based on state and national standards
-
Delivers online lessons that provide tailored instruction and practice for each student to accelerate growth
-
Supports teachers with in-the-moment resources for remediation and reteaching at individualized, small group, and whole class levels of instruction
-
Is research-based and proven to work—students who use i‑Ready Personalized Instruction make remarkable learning gains
-
Includes dedicated service and support at every step of the implementation journey through i‑Ready Partners
Science
Mystery Science provides a large number of ready-made science lessons, on subjects from biology to astronomy to geology. Teachers select the lesson they would like to use and simply hit “play.”
Each lesson is organized around a key question (e.g. “What happens when plates move along a fault?”) The lesson starts with a short introductory video, laying out the lesson’s key question. The video is followed by discussion questions for the class. Finally, the lesson ends with a hands-on activity designed to help students find the answer to the key question. Each activity comes with instructions and a list of materials needed.
​
Defined STEM provides relevance between real-world topics and classroom instruction through project-based learning. With credible articles, videos, rubrics, and prompts, Defined STEM also saves teachers valuable time spent lesson planning.