Curriculum Highlights

Mathematics

Everyday Mathematics is a comprehensive K-6 curriculum that Reston Day School implements beginning in grade one.  It was developed by the University of Chicago School of Mathematics Project in order to enable children in elementary grades to learn more mathematical content and be life-long mathematical thinkers. It is an active approach to learning math that is rooted in real life experiences.  Concepts and skills are exposed multiple times through  numerous methods, with frequent opportunities for review and practice.  Students are also encouraged to explain and discuss their mathematical thinking on an ongoing basis. Students take a beginning of the year, mid-year, and end of the year written assessment that covers important concepts and skills presented throughout the year.  These assessments provide a snapshot of where children are in their understanding of concepts and skills and how they are progressing toward their goals.  The assessments, and prior knowledge of the students, help teachers form math groups and determine math skill needs and strengths for the students.

RDS also utilizes the Parent University Financial Literacy program...for more information, click here Financial Literacy

Language Arts

Our Language Arts program aligns with our hands on, context based approach to teaching.  Often throughout the course of the year our reading and writing is integrated with social studies, as in our Global Connections unit, where students read stories from other countries. We also utilize the following programs:

• Four Blocks Literacy Model, which represents four different approaches to teaching reading and writing-Guided Reading, Self-Selected Reading, Writing, and Working With Words (vocabulary and word study).  Classes spend time working with each approach every day to build reading and writing skills.
• Book Buddies, where students are given the opportunity to "buddy up" with RDS Kindergartners.  Older students act as a role model and guide as they do reading and writing activities with their younger buddies.  This has also been a great leadership building activity.
• Reston Regional Library, where we visit frequently to select books and work on library skills.
• Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), the method RDS uses for assessing and documenting K-8 students' development in reading.  The DRA is a reading inventory that is designed to determine a child's independent reading level, specific strengths and weaknesses in word recognition and reading comprehension, and identify what a child needs to learn next.  The DRA is used to create a reading profile for each student.  The reading profile guides how student groups will be formed and what skills and strategies will be taught to best meet individual student's reading development.
• Words Their Way Spelling Inventory, used to determine the student's present stage of spelling development, knowledge of words, and how words work in the English language.  The Spelling Inventory is used to determine instructional goals for students and the types of word study that would be most beneficial to each student.
• Write Source, introduces students to the mechanics of writing, including grammar, structure and fluency.  Students are given an opportunity to write a narrative, descriptive, expository, and a persuasive sample at the beginning, middle and end of the year within the Write Source curriculum.  The writing pieces are evaluated based on rubrics that are organized around the six traits of writing: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions.  Write Source writing samples and rubrics are kept in the student's portfolio and are used to demonstrate writing development over time.