Students will hone their reading and analytical skills while developing color-coding, mind maps and graphic organizers to assist with the writing process. Students will read nightly, using audiobooks and resources such as Learning Ally, and will write journal entries as well as longer essays. Developing techniques for getting the ideas in their head down on paper, students will use both technology (speech-to-text and text-to-speech software) and hands-on strategies and tools. Students will work on reading, writing, critical thinking, research and synthesizing skills. Students will read a wide variety of authors, from classics to contemporary, in order to study a diverse array of voices that describe the world in which they live.
In addition to working on reading and writing in all academic classes, students with a need for specific instruction will take a skills seminar in reading (decoding, fluency, comprehension), executive functioning and organization. Instruction will be differentiated, and will focus on specific areas of need.