by Karen Young and Jonathan Talbot, Cathedral School for Boys Learning Specialists CSB READS! HOW CATHEDRAL BUILDS STRONG FOUNDATIONS IN LITERACY HABITS OF SCHOLARSHIP WALK THROUGH THE DOORS of Cathedral School for Boys, and you’ll quickly see why we proudly embrace the tagline CSB Reads! In classrooms across the Lower School, students are actively building their foundational literacy skills:
“finger tapping” the sounds in phonetic words, skywriting trick words, learning new vocabulary words, and practicing spelling and reading. Even during recess, you’ll often find boys reading together in the garden or curled
up on a blue-block “couch,” excited to share their latest favorite book. At Cathedral, we believe that a strong foundation in literacy opens the door to lifelong learning. In the Lower School, we use a structured literacy approach that helps students become confident and capable readers and writers. A central component of our language arts program is Wilson Fundations, a research-based phonics curriculum taught five days a week. Fundations provides systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, high-frequency words, vocabulary, fluency, handwriting, and spelling. Because English is an alphabetic language composed of letters that represent sounds, students must learn to break spoken words into smaller sound units, such as syllables or individual phonemes. For example, the word cat consists of three distinct sounds: /c/ /a/ /t/. Learning to segment and blend these sounds is essential for both reading and spelling. By the end of kindergarten, our students are able to segment, blend, and manipulate sounds in words containing up to three phonemes. As they systematically progress through the phonics program, they advance from decoding one-syllable consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words to words with four or five phonemes, and eventually to more complex
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CATHEDRAL SCHOOL FOR BOYS
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