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Literacy
Individual Reading at MapleStone School
At Maplestone, literacy instruction is completely individualized. Students complete a reading assessment to determine if they need explicit reading instruction. Students are also referred to the literacy instructor for help with decoding, fluency, comprehension strategies, vocabulary-building, writing, test taking and/or support with other academic work; some students request individual reading time.
Group Reading at MapleStone School
Each group receives one hour of group reading with the literacy instructor per week. As with individual reading, group reading is designed to provide enriching literacy experiences that appeal to and meet the needs of each group. Groups have read entire novels, excerpts from novels, informational texts, episodic narratives, story collections, and news articles.
A child who reads will be an adult who thinks.
Powerful literacy is using listening and reading to understand the world & using speaking and writing to negotiate in the world and to advocate in one’s own interest. Whenever possible, MapleStone students engage in authentic experiences that extend their reading & facilitate powerful literacy, for example:
When the Animal Science Group was reading The Truth About Horses, Friends and My Life as a Coward, they invited the Maine author, Sarah P. Gibson, to come visit the school and they planned & hosted the entire visit on May 30, 2018, which included performing a Readers’ Theatre skit based on a chapter in the book. (2017-2018)
When the Environmental Science Group was reading Johnny Got His Gun, they also visited the University of Southern Maine art exhibit “Why We Fought: American WWI Posters and the Art of Persuasion”. (2017-2018)
For Valentine’s Day 2018, the Mechanics Group wrote First Line poems using famous first lines from classic love poems and then decorated heart cookies; everyone decorated one for themselves & one to give to someone else.
After the Outdoor Adventure Group read a Bangor Daily News article about logging for the biomass industry (“As paper mills die, here’s how Maine’s loggers hope to survive”, BDN 4/3/2107 ), they wrote a Letter to the Editor explaining why they thought the article was biased and did not discuss any of the problems for the biomass industry. Their letter was published on May 11th. (2016-2017)
After the Environmental Science Group read The Boys in the Boat and watched the documentary The Boys of ’36, they visited Fred Louck & Salmon Falls Woodworking to learn how the building of rowing skulls has changed, Great Bay Rowing Club & Andrew Voorhees of Great Bay Rowing to get some first-hand experience & then met U.S. Olympic Rower Jennie Marshall to see her memorabilia from the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea as well as from the Goodwill Games in Moscow (in the former Soviet Union) in 1986. (2016-2017)
MapleStone’s Quarterly Newsletters
Three times year, each group writes an informational article that summarizes the group’ work for MapleStone’s quarterly newsletter.
Contact Us
2435 Milton Mills Road
Acton, ME
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 588
Acton, ME 04001
P- 207.477.2829
Fax – 207.477.2820
Ron.robert@maplestone.org
MapleStone is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization.