Watching children grow and develop as readers and writers is a rewarding experience. We invite you to try these ways to support children's literacy development at home.
Reading & Writing
A Skills-Based Approach to Reading, Writing, Thinking and Speaking
King fosters creative and intellectual development through a skills-based content-embedded approach to teaching reading, writing, thinking, and speaking, PreK-Grade 12, in a sequence that strengthens student expertise and allows for group and individual instruction. Elementary, middle, and high school students learn how to read carefully, write clearly, think critically, and communicate their ideas with peers. Students tackle challenging texts in English, History, Science, Social Sciences, and World Languages, and learn how to conduct thoughtful research in order to develop a claim (thesis) and support an argument.
We emphasize the importance of cultural, contextual, and technical aspects of written expression, and we equip students with a set of tools enabling them to read, think, write, and speak about a text on personal, communal, and global levels.
King students explore literary composition and nonfiction writing outside of the classroom. Students attend The Dodge Poetry Festival and submit creative work to competitions, including The Stamford Literary Competition. We are a community of writers and all students can publish their work. Students submit poems to the Lower School’s poetry anthology; short stories to the Upper School creative magazine, Ink; and articles to the Yearbook.
Literacy in Action
Sydney Fishkin ’21 describes making poetry as "freeing." "It allows you to express yourself without directly telling people what you are really talking about," she adds. Her classmate, Ian Marsh ’21, agrees. "It was a way to be open about myself in a way I never thought I could."
Stephanie Hoos, English Faculty and Middle School Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator, supports her Grade 8 students in reflecting meaningfully on their own and others' beliefs. Ms. Hoos describes her objective as "supporting curiosity in students and engaging with deeper questions through the overarching concepts of windows and mirrors. Windows give us a point of view into another person's space, perceptions, world views, thoughts, and feelings. Mirrors give us greater insight into ourselves and ask us to think critically about our own beliefs and behaviors."
Students in Grades 3, 4 and 5 are joyfully immersed in reading and writing, building the foundational skills needed to evolve as able researchers who can assess diverse information and shape and share their own meaningful perspectives. Grade 4 students learn about nonfiction structure, including how to use headings and subtitles to provide clues on where information can be found while conducting research. Grade 4 student Penny Prince explains that this is useful, saying, "I have the ability to find a subtopic faster than normal. My brain was familiar with finding information quicker and not having to read through everything on the website I was looking at."
Anna Lubowitz, English Faculty, describes her objectives for King Grade 7 students as, "I want students to improve their ability to be critical readers and thinkers and to appreciate that everyone has a different experience of what it means to 'come of age in America,' which is our theme for Grade 7 English."