District 109 strives to develop lifelong, self-directed learners; critical and creative thinkers; effective communicators; collaborative team members; and respectful and responsible members of society. With these goals at our foundation, we recognize that English Language Arts instruction needs to be comprehensive, which can be summarized as instruction that supports and prepares students to independently use their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills to effectively comprehend and communicate for authentic and personal reasons.  To attain this vision:

• Teachers work to develop a classroom environment that increase students’ motivation by allowing students choice in what they read and write, providing the opportunity to collaborate with peers, and helping students see the relevance in literacy tasks.
• Teachers provide explicit and scaffolded instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and vocabulary.
• Teachers make systematic decisions about the texts students read to help more readers into increasingly complex materials.
• Literacy is embedded within and across all content areas for authentic purposes.
• Teachers use formative and summative assessments to guide instruction.
• Students have extended time for literacy instruction within a comprehensive and coordinated literacy program.