Language arts curriculum
guide will get closer look
BY LARRY RAMER
Staff Writer
MARLBORO — Board of Education President Cynthia Green has asked a school administrator to make changes in the K-8 district’s new language arts curriculum guide in grades four and five.
The curriculum guides, which will be used by all fourth and fifth grade teachers, including special education teachers, "contain many more accommodations for special education students than ‘C’ level (advanced) students," Green said. "I’m concerned because there aren’t that many enrichment activities."
Karen Kondek, the curriculum supervisor who headed the committee which wrote the guide, said, "The format we wrote the curriculum guide in, using (New Jersey) core curriculum standards, did not lend itself as well to writing enrichment activities."
Kondek explained that one "C" level teacher asked pupils to describe the connections between different parts of the texts, while in other classes the teachers told their pupils how the separate parts were linked.
"I don’t know how to write that into the curriculum guide," said Kondek, who added that the first teacher was using a more open-ended approach which allowed her "C" level pupils to reach different conclusions than their peers in other classes.
"I don’t see what those few staff members with a lower comfort level with the material can use as a written guide to help them. I’m concerned because teachers now have a bigger burden," Green responded.
Kondek said she would study the matter and address Green’s concerns sometime in the winter.
In a related matter, pupils in Marlboro will begin reading more works of literature in school, Kondek told the board. The books are all at or above grade-level and each grade will read works of drama, fiction, nonfiction and classics, she said. The books relate to themes that are raised in the students’ textbooks and Kondek said most of the books were recommended by the publishers of the textbooks that are used by the district.
Incorporating the longer books into the curriculum will allow children to get used to reading more material at one time, she said. It will also expose the pupils to great works of literature, Kondek added.
Eventually, Kondek said, 70 percent of pupils’ language arts study will involve works of literature, while 30 percent of the time will be spent on textbooks. However, before this goal can be reached, more books will have to be acquired and some teachers will have to receive additional training in how to teach language arts using works of literature, Kondek said. Meanwhile, pupils in all language arts classes will read at least three books, she said.