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KINDERGARTEN - GRADE 2
Building the Foundation
K-2
Every book is read aloud, with a teacher.
Math
Numbers that make sense
Counting and Number Sense
Place Value
Ones, tens, and hundreds
Addition and Subtraction
From understanding to fluency
Measurement, Time, and Money
Shapes and Early Geometry
Word Problems
Reading the question, not just the numbers
English
Learning to read
Phonics and Phonemic Awareness
Sounds, letters, and decoding
Sight Words and Fluency
Picture Books and Read-Alouds
First Vocabulary
Speaking and Writing in Full Sentences
Describing what happened, and why
IN CLASS
Decoding and meaning are taught in the same hour, not in separate workbooks.
ENGLISH
Read together, out loud
Words come back
A teacher reads the book with them, stopping to talk and going back to the page to check.
Every word met in this week’s book returns the following week — met once is met and lost.
Fluency is measured
Timed reading with words-per-minute recorded, so progress is a number and not an impression.
Writing starts at one sentence
Each book ends with the student writing what happened, and why.
MATH
One goal a week
Each week names a single skill, aligned to the standards your child's school follows.
Word problems are reading
The question gets read first; the numbers come second.
More for those ready
Singapore Math problems for those students who finish early and want something harder.
GRADES 3 - 5
From Learning to Read to Reading to Learn
3-5
Every week opens with 15 minutes on the book.
Math
Deep concepts, strong fluency
Multiplication and Division
Facts to multi-digit computation
Fractions
Equivalence, comparing, and operations
Decimals and Place Value
Area, Volume, and Measurement
Multi-Step Word Problems
English
From reading to arguing
Novels and Non-Fiction
Whole books, read closely
Vocabulary Webs
Each word defined, connected, and used
Question Ladders
Recall inference opinion
Understanding Characters
What they want, and why
Full-Paragraph Writing
IN CLASS
This is the stage the whole sequence rests on, so nothing here is left to chance.
ENGLISH
One book for 6 to 8 weeks
Fifteen minutes on the book, first
Students stay inside a long text long enough for it to change how they read.
Discussion comes before any worksheet — the talking is what makes the reading stick.
Comprehension in defined steps
Every text climbs the same ladder: what it says, what it implies, what it means.
Genres travel in pairs
Two texts of one genre back to back, the second asking the student to compare — how a skill becomes transferable.
Words are built, not listed
Roots, nuance, and a web for each word: how it appeared in the text, then a sentence of the student’s own.
Knowledge is homework
A weekly comprehension passage on a new subject, so background knowledge accumulates alongside skill.
MATH
Three levels, two forms
Every worksheet comes at three levels and in two versions — so a second attempt is a different paper on the same standard.
One “I can” a week
This week's skill is written in the student's own words, straight from the state standard.
Competition problems on the side
Math Kangaroo and Math Olympiad sets for students who want the harder problem.
GRADES 6 - 8
Ready for What Comes Next
6-8
One session for the book, two for words and writing.
Math
Towards algebra
Ratios, Rates, and Percents
Integers and Rational Numbers
Expressions and Equations
Linear Relationships and Functions
Geometry and Statistics
NC Math 1 (Algebra 1)
For students who have mastered every course before it
English
Writing that holds up
Academic Paragraph and Essays
Evidence and Citation
Structured Peer Review
Novels and Rich Nonfiction
Vocabulary Toward the PSAT
Our own PSAT 8/9 Vocabulary Workbook
IN CLASS
Middle school is when a reader becomes a producer — and when the habits high school simply assumes have to be built.
ENGLISH
Annotation, taught before it is assumed
The book gets its own class
High school hands a student a book and expects margins full of notes. We teach the marking itself — what to underline, where to argue back, which lines to carry into the essay — while there is still time to practise it.
Long books need more than fifteen minutes, so discussion runs as a session of its own.
Two more for the machinery
Vocabulary, grammar, and writing get their own sessions — three in a cycle, not one.
Tested twice, on purpose
A quiz on each unit, then a cumulative quiz every few units, so words survive past Friday.
Paraphrase as a check
Restating an author in your own words is hard to fake, which is why we ask for it constantly.
Essays are revised
Written, read by a teacher, and rewritten — revision is the part that teaches.
MATH
Toward algebra, in order
Ratios and rational numbers before expressions and equations; functions last, once the ground holds.
NC Math 1 early, if earned
Students who have mastered every course before it can take Algebra 1 with us ahead of high school.
Unit tests in two forms
Same standards, different numbers — a retake measures learning, not memory.
Every student reads. Every week, we talk about it.
From third grade on, reading happens at home — that is the only way to get enough of it. Before that, we read with them.
15 minutes every week discussing the book: what the character wanted, what changed, and what the author didn’t say outright.
Every book ends in writing, in one of eight formats — a book report, an interview with a character, an article, an advertisement, a mind map, a timeline, a comic, or a quiz the student writes for the class.
A different set each year.
What our 3rd-5th graders are reading this year
Five to six books a year, one at a time — six to eight weeks with each. These are three of them.
Radiant
Vaunda Micheaux Nelson
Wishtree
Katherine Applegate
A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall
Jasmine Warga
Every title is assigned by us, and matched to where a child particularly is.
How a math lesson runs
The same five steps, in every grade. Most of the learning happens in the last two.
1
2
3
4
5
The concept, before the procedure
Why the method works, not only the steps that make it come out right.
Worked through together
Teacher and student solve the first problems, side by side, thinking out loud.
Then alone
The student works without help, so we can see what is actually understood.
Right? Say why
The student explains the reasoning behind the answer. An answer nobody can explain is a guess that happened to land.
Wrong? Find it yourself
The student hunts for the error before a teacher points at it, fixes it, then explains both halves: why the first attempt was wrong, and why this one is right. Wrong twice, and the teacher steps in — then a fresh problem of the same type, to prove it holds.
WHY WE TEACH IT THIS WAY
Explaining beats repeating
In classroom studies with Algebra 1 students, those asked to explain why a step was right or wrong gained more conceptual understanding than those who practised correct steps alone.
Mistakes are the material
The U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse guide for algebra recommends having students analyse incorrect solutions and explain why the error produced a wrong answer.
61% vs 38%
Mixing problem types
In a randomized trial with 787 seventh graders, classes whose practice mixed problem types scored 61% on an unannounced test a month later; classes that practised one type at a time scored 38%.
Booth, Lange, Koedinger & Newton, Learning and Instruction (2013) · IES/WWC, Teaching Strategies for Improving Algebra Knowledge (2015) · Rohrer, Dedrick, Hartwig & Cheung, Journal of Educational Psychology (2020)
How it works
A chart per student
Each student has a pacing chart — what was covered, what is next, and where they stalled. It carries over when a teacher changes.
Three levels, every worksheet
Concept, challenge, and a harder version of a real test format — different problems, not fewer.
Progress you can read
A written report in English and Korean: what they worked on, what improved, what’s next.
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