Kindergarten

Our Kindergarten is a child-centered program where curriculum is structured to take advantage of a child's natural abilities, interests, and enthusiasm for learning.
At this level, children are still learning to handle daily school routines such as moving between classrooms and adjusting to different teachers for special subjects.

Classroom skills such as sharing, taking turns, accepting responsibility for belongings, and knowing when to speak and listen are integrated into daily activities. The goal over the course of the year is to encourage children to become more independent, confident, and sensitive to others. Curtis strives to help children learn to recognize and value their own unique abilities, personalities, family backgrounds, and learning styles – as well as those of their classmates.

The Kindergarten language arts curriculum forms the foundation for students to become strategic readers. Reading readiness skills are interlaced within every activity. At this age, children show a natural interest in books, storytelling, role-playing, poems, riddles, and songs. We use a Balanced Literacy approach that emphasizes decoding skills and comprehension skills within the context of authentic reading experiences. We believe it is important for children to learn letter-sound relationships and use them to figure out new words. However, we do not subscribe to a “phonics-first” approach where children’s reading materials are limited by the letter sounds the teacher has introduced. We teach students to use the three cueing systems – meaning, structure, and graphophonics – together as a group of strategies, rather than in isolation. Giving students daily, extended periods of time to read books that are appropriately supportive and challenging allows them to practice the whole act of reading and experience how all parts work together. Teachers can accurately match leveled trade books with individual students by using running record assessments that indicate a reader's "just right" level. Areas of focus include concepts of print, phonemic awareness, decoding and word recognition, vocabulary and concept development, fluency, comprehension and literary analysis, the writing process, handwriting, and listening and speaking. Comprehension skills are primarily developed through discussion, which helps students recognize characters, themes, sequences, and details in a story.

The social studies curriculum is organized around six topics: history, culture, geography, government, economics, and research. Students in Kindergarten focus on the concept of community as exemplified in their family, their school, and their neighborhoods. An emphasis is placed on developing the skills of cooperation and kindness while teaching the basic rules and laws of a democracy. Students begin to understand the concept of the past and "long ago and far away" through their study of holidays, famous people, and their own ancestry. As they become aware of the various backgrounds represented by students in the classroom, they learn to appreciate cultural differences and similarities.
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Curtis School

15871 Mulholland Drive  ·  Los Angeles CA 90049
310-476-1251