Literacy Plan

The Orono curriculum incorporates the Five Essential Components of Reading Instruction identified by the National Reading Panel Report (2000). The five components are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

A variety of curriculum resources are used to meet the individual needs of students. The foundational skills program is Sonday Essentials, which is based on the Orton Gillingham methodology. Through this program students learn skills and engage in daily practice in phonological awareness, phonics, morphology, high frequency words, and spelling. Instruction is systematic, sequential, explicit and incorporates multi-sensory learning strategies. Students engage in reading sounds, words, and sentences daily to develop decoding skills, accurate word recognition, and fluency.

Grade-level, standards-based curriculum units focus on the areas of comprehension, vocabulary development, and writing. Students read and write daily to apply foundational skills, build fluency and vocabulary, engage in critical thinking about texts, and write for a variety of purposes and audiences.

What will students know and be able to do? Please visit the Essential Learnings (K-5) webpage to learn more about expectations at each grade level.

Essential Learnings (K-5)

Grade-level Assessment Practices & Guidelines

To learn more about the Kindergarten-Grade 5 assessment practices (screening, diagnostic, progress monitoring, and proficiency outcomes), please visit the K-5 Literacy Assessment Practices & Guidelines webpage.

K-5 LITERACY Assessment Practices & Guidelines

Orono Schools provides four levels of support for elementary learners: Tier 1, 2 3 and 4. Please visit the Multi-tiered Systems of Support webpage to learn more about each tier and guidelines for qualification.

Multi-tiered Systems of Support (K-5)

Communicating student progress with parents is a goal and priority in Orono Schools. Teachers and parents collaborate throughout the year, so that appropriate educational plans are developed in order to ensure that students are demonstrating proficiency and making adequate progress in order to meet end-of-year targets. At the beginning of the school year, each school holds an open house to build relationships, share information about the upcoming school year, and answer parent questions. Information about the core literacy program, including essential elements of curriculum and instruction will be made available to parents and will be posted on the school website. 

In the Orono Schools, we recognize the importance of continual progress monitoring and feedback to families throughout the school year. Our teaching and learning cycle reflects ongoing formative assessment processes and consistent feedback to students and parents. Formal feedback cycles include fall, winter, and spring assessment sharing and end-of-term report cards. Standardized assessment and report card data is shared through the parentvue portal at the conclusion of each assessment window. Teachers provide students and families ongoing feedback about performance related to essential learnings and curricular outcomes. Families of students in need of additional support will be contacted by classroom teachers, school administrators, and/or interventionists about the need and the appropriate intervention. Strong student and parent relationships and communication are a hallmark of the Orono Schools and are integral to success in our literacy program.  

Responsibilities of all literacy leaders include: 

• Creating and communicating a vision 
• Modeling that vision 
• Implementing best practice strategies for students 
• Sharing ownership and trust 
• Reflecting and learning for improved student outcomes

Orono Schools value and recognize that professional development enhances the professional knowledge and skills of teachers so that they, in turn, improve the learning of students. Researchers are consistent in their recommendations that the best professional development is job-embedded. Professional development in Orono includes ongoing teacher collaboration through the work of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), job-embedded support through literacy coaching and peer evaluation, and professional development activities that enhance knowledge of content and research-based instructional strategies.

Collaborative Teams

The leadership and teachers in the Orono Schools are committed to supporting and implementing Professional Learning Communities. The essence of a learning community is a focus on and a commitment to the learning of each student. We embrace high levels of learning for all students as our fundamental responsibility. To achieve this goal, the adults must also be continually learning. Therefore, structures exist to ensure staff members engage in job-embedded learning as part of their routine work practices. A PLC is composed of collaborative team members who work interdependently to achieve common goals linked to the purpose of learning for all. In a PLC, collaboration is a systematic process in which teachers work together to impact classroom practice in ways that will lead to better results for our students, our teams, and our schools across all subject areas.

Professional Development

The Orono Schools has a strong history of professional development in literacy. Literacy specialists, as well as outside consultants, provide training in specific literacy practices. Recent professional development has been focused on the Science of Reading and the teaching of foundational skills across tiers of support. Currently ten teachers have completed LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling), which is approximately 150 hours of professional development based in the science of reading for elementary educators. In addition, fifty-six classroom teachers and interventionists have been trained in Sonday Essentials and/or Sonday System, which is based on Orton Gillingham methodologies for teaching foundational skills. Reading specialists and Special Education teachers have training in Orton Gillingham (IMSE) and/or Wilson. Aligned with the READ Act, the district has selected the OL & LA professional development program for K-12 phase I educators and the LETRS for Early Childhood program for preschool educators.