Literacy
Successful literacy instruction and interventions provide a strong core of highly explicit, systematic teaching of foundation skills such as decoding and spelling skills, as well as explicit teaching of other important components of literacy such as vocabulary, comprehension, and writing.
Elementary: LOSD uses an interactive literacy approach at the elementary level that includes direct instruction, structured literacy with phonics and phonemic awareness, guided practice, and independent practice, reading and writing workshop, and instruction that meet students' specific learning needs. This approach uses a gradual release of responsibility, in which teachers first explicitly model and directly teach reading strategies with focus lessons, then support student acquisition of these strategies through structures such as shared and/or guided reading. Finally, teachers provide independent practice in authentic reading with accountability to ensure that students are applying the strategies.
Structured Literacy is a component of comprehensive literacy instruction. Structured literacy is characterized by the provision of systematic, explicit instruction that integrates listening, speaking, reading, and writing and emphasizes the structure of language across the speech sound system (phonology), the writing system (orthography), the structure of sentences (syntax), the meaningful parts of words (morphology), the relationships among words (semantics), and the organization of spoken and written discourse. (International Dyslexia Association)
Secondary: LOSD has a focus on disciplinary reading and writing across the curriculum. Explicit reading instruction and frequent opportunities to engage with authentic texts allow students to deepen their understanding of the discipline and its specific reading demands. Explicit writing instruction and frequent opportunities for practice allow students to develop critical thinking skills and apply knowledge in specific disciplinary settings.