Oakstone Academy has inclusive, multi-age classrooms to serve the needs of students in grades 1-5. Elementary classrooms offer small student-to-teacher ratios. Classroom teams focus on individual learning needs for all children, allowing extra support and enriched curricula as needed. Students are exposed to many challenging activities each day to promote positive attitudes towards learning.
All children are expected to follow classroom rules and routines, and are grouped for learning activities based on their developmental level. Supports are built into the curriculum for elementary students with ASD to help them follow the schedule and to monitor their own behaviors. The classrooms offer both group and individual behavior management systems to help all children be successful in a busy learning environment.
Derived from the Ohio Content Standards, Oakstone Academy’s curriculum is designed to allow students to achieve their maximum potential across all subject areas. For students with special needs, modifications, adaptations, and enhancements to the curriculum are provided. Although each content area is enriched with experiential learning, basic curricular content is the foundation of the elementary program.
The elementary program provides a holistic curriculum including reading, mathematics, language arts, science, and social studies, as well as activities to strengthen children’s social skills. Students also participate in Spanish, music/band, art, and physical education. Emphasis is placed on individual and small group learning, as children participate in collaborative activities. Additionally, all students participate in district and state-wide testing.
Direct Instruction (DI) is a highly structured approach to learning. Designed for students in first through fifth grade, Direct Instruction programs encompass several content areas such a Language, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies. The Children’s Center for Developmental Enrichment at Oakstone Academy primarily uses the Reading Mastery series by Siegfried Engelmann and Elaine C. Bruner. Children master the following skills: sound pronunciation, sequencing, oral blending, rhyming, symbol identification, saying words slowly and fast, reading vocabulary, story reading, picture identification, and independent workbook practice including comprehension activities.
Direct Instruction programs require the teacher to administer a placement test to each child individually to determine a starting point. Students are grouped (generally no more than five children per group) according to their reading abilities. In the inclusive setting, typically developing students play a key role. Given appropriate and frequent opportunities for active student response, modeling serves as an extremely effective strategy for children with ASD. Lessons are presented daily and take about thirty minutes. The manual specifies the sequence. The manual specifies the sequence, statements, and signals. In the multi-age, inclusive classroom however, the teacher must adjust time, language, and hand movements while highlighting, emphasizing and repeating the skills(s) being presented. Moreover, the special education teacher will often begin with sounds and/or motions that are already in the child’s repertoire.
Ready Mastery supplies games, blending, and spelling tasks, and take-home sheets for practice. It also contains built-in assessment to determine mastery of skills. Oral, visual, rate and accuracy tests are administered individually to students with and without disabilities that provide teachers with immediate feedback.
These specific strategies are just a few of the many creative ways our elementary teachers combine children from diverse learning backgrounds in one classroom successfully. Our typical children and their peers with special needs are exposed to many challenging activities each day, and our children have positive attitudes towards learning (we will soon have posted a new article by The Columbus Dispatch where some of our peer models have the opportunity to voice their opinions about their school). Many of our students have taken the California Achievement Test. Keep checking back as we will be posting their unbelievable scores soon!!!