Curriculum at Mountain View Elementary School

Mountain View has always strived to combine sound educational practices with innovation and creativity. This is accomplished through providing a curriculum rich in opportunity and designed to meet the needs of the diverse learners at our school.

Technology Integration

Since Mountain View reopened in 1992 as the elementary component of District 20’s technology magnet strand (which includes Challenger Middle School and Pine Creek High School), we have striven to integrate technology in new and innovative ways. Technology is seen as a tool for learning, not a subject to be taught in and of itself. From kindergarten onward, students use technology to access, analyze, and present information, master basic skills, and to communicate with teachers, classmates, and the world around them. We were the first elementary school in the district to offer e-mail to all staff and students, provide access to the Internet, teach multimedia presentation tools, and develop our own website.

Technology integration at our school includes the use of Internet research tools (including the use of online reference sites), multimedia presentation tools such as Kid Pix, HyperStudio, and PowerPoint, digital imagery, video editing, and reading enrichment through the use of Accelerated Reader, among others. Teachers communicate with parents and highlight what is going on in their classrooms through e-mail and classroom web pages. Two wireless mobile laptop labs enhance computer access for students in combination with the eight computers permanently housed in each classroom, all with high-speed Internet access through the district’s network, as well as a local school network where students and staff can store files for retrieval at other workstations in the building. An e-instruction system allows teachers to create review lessons, quizzes, and tests where students respond instantly to questions created by the teacher, giving teachers immediate feedback regarding student mastery of material.

We will continue to work towards greater technological innovation through the expansion of our wireless capabilities, the acquisition of more systems (like e-instruction) that allow us to instantly assess student understanding and modify our instruction accordingly, and moving towards greater access to school files from home.

The Riggs Program

Based on the Spaulding method, the Riggs program for spelling, phonics, reading and writing combines phonemic awareness, mastery of the rules of English spelling, and mastery of English grammar. Students begin by learning the 72 basic phonograms of English, mastering all of these by the first grade. These phonograms are the building blocks for the spelling component of the Riggs program, which includes a unique marking system to help tie phonogram mastery to real-world spelling. As students advance through the grades, they use daily lessons and notebooks to expand their knowledge of English grammar and the Greek and Latin roots that can help to expand their awareness of commonalities in vocabulary and spelling.

The HOSTS Program

The HOSTS (Help One Student To Succeed) Program is unique to Mountain View in District 20. Volunteer mentors are utilized to work one-on-one with emerging and at-risk readers in kindergarten, first, and second grades. Students work with their mentors for a half hour each day, four days a week, benefiting from lessons that are individually tailored to their reading needs. Each day, the HOSTS teacher and her staff review the lessons that were taught by the mentors and make adjustments based on student performance that day. This very successful program has helped many of our young readers start down the path to reading success.

Everyday Math

The Everyday Math program, based on the acclaimed Chicago Math model, presents math concepts to students in real-life situations with a hands-on approach. Students master mathematical skills through developing a real understanding of the concepts behind the methods used to solve various types of mathematical problems. Using a spiraling method of instruction, students build upon previous lessons and activities to construct an internalized knowledge of how mathematics truly work. Teachers are enthusiastic about the progress our students have made since the Everyday Math program was adopted in 2002, and standardized test scores have validated their confidence in the program.

Science

Science is taught with a hands-on approach using science kits provided by the school district. Students are taught to hypothesize and test these hypotheses with scientific experiments. They also learn to process the information they have gathered through the use of science notebooks. Rubrics designed by science teachers help to evaluate student mastery of the concepts taught. Many of our teachers have also been trained in the Step Up to Science model, which further enhances this hands-on method of science instruction.

Writing

Step Up to Writing is combined with the Seven Traits model to develop student writing skills at an early age. Students learn how to structure paragraphs and combine these paragraphs into organized and well thought-out compositions. The Seven Traits model emphasizes mastery in the areas of using strong vocabulary, sentence structure, organization, voice, grammar and conventions, and presentation. Students are provided with rubrics which help them to focus on these areas as they are composing and evaluating their own writing.

Social Studies

State standards and the District Twenty Scope and Sequence are used as guidelines in Social Studies instruction. Through planned lessons and research, students learn to expand their knowledge of society outward, starting with the family, and moving on to the community, the state, the nation, and the world.

Reading

Reading is the building block for future success, and we give the task of teaching reading the energy it deserves. Not only do we want our students to master the intricacies of reading, but we also instill a love of reading, an appreciation of good literature, and the many ways that reading enhances and enriches our lives. Using the Pegasus Reading Program, which uses real literature as the core component of our reading program (both fiction and non-fiction), we emphasize the skills of main idea, character development, summarization, retelling, and using questioning techniques to comprehend and understand what we are reading. Combined with vocabulary development and a foundation in basic reading skills taught through the Riggs program, our students consistently score among the top readers in third, fourth, and fifth grade, as measured by the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP). Students are also assessed twice yearly using the Adams 50, an individual reading inventory, which provides valuable information regarding student strengths and weaknesses in the area of reading. These results are used by teachers to help plan instruction and intervention for their students.