Our Program Curriculum

This curriculum provides strategies that promote and improve oral reading fluency in early grades (K-3), reading comprehension in later grades (4-5), and vocabulary-building across all levels.  This curriculum is exciting for children because they have the opportunity to select books that can be read aloud or independently.  The children are engaged in discussions that allow them to make connections between the stories and their own lives.

This curriculum focuses on positive skill-building (strengths-based versus deficit-based) through challenging activities, leadership development and decision-making opportunities.  Children have hands-on practice allowing them to apply skills learned to real-world scenarios.  This curriculum promotes personal and social skills such as problem solving, self-control and leadership with the goal of preparing the participants to become productive citizens in a community. The children’s community includes a government center, an entrepreneurial hub and a community gathering space they manage, and staff facilitates. The children hold “town meetings” to establish their community’s constitution, vote on leaders, handle grievances, and participate in job fairs. Each participant is expected to vote, hold a job, pay taxes, save money (pretend currency), patronage other ventures in the community and adhere to the laws of their make-believe community. 

Our homework assistances utilize evidence-based strategies that provide targeted and intentional instructional support for children.  Our staff is available to assist and motivate the children to focus on completing their assignments. Staff communicates progress with parents.   We provide a quiet working environment for homework along with supplies (sharpened pencils, paper, crayons, scissors, rulers, calculators, etc.) as needed.  The homework session begins with each child sharing their assignments.  Staff work with the child to develop the priority based on the level of help needed for each subject.   Completed assignments are presented to the staff for review at the conclusion of homework time.  Staff promotes critical thinking and healthy independent study habits.

Differentiated Learning Instruction (DLI) is delivered individually or in small groups by a Certified Teacher for all identified struggling readers (i.e., frustrational range on the appropriate literacy tool pretest), to improve reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary.  This component is in addition to group literacy activities. The goal of DLI is to focus on improving or advancing literacy skills.  The struggling readers are provided 30 minutes in small group (5 or less participants) setting. The Certified Teacher provides instruction based on the areas of need.  We use the WonderWorks curriculum. This curriculum utilizes the close reading approach which allows participants to critically analyze the text they are focusing on in order to develop a precise understanding of the text’s meaning.

This curriculum provides structured physical fitness programming to keep children moving throughout the activity, while promoting fitness, fun, teamwork, and cooperative play.  Programs offer a variety of activities that encourage participation for all skill levels and abilities.  A key feature of this curriculum is it meet both the child’s needs and interests.  Physical activities and fitness can focus on, but is not limited to jump rope, parachute play, jogging games, fitness circuits, aerobics, and team sports.