The decision by Cabarrus County Schools to adopt Arts & Letters™ is earning media attention and community praise.
An article in the Independent Tribune, based in Concord, N.C, includes details about the recent move by the Cabarrus County Board of Education to approve the K-8 English language arts curriculum developed by Great Minds.
The newspaper article requires a subscription to read in its entirety. But, to sum it up, the Independent Tribune explains how this is the first ELA curriculum Cabarrus County Schools have adopted in roughly 15 years. District leaders chose it to align their instruction with the Science of Reading and North Carolina educational standards.
The article described a joyful scene at the Board of Education meeting: “A raucous applause erupted from the audience following the vote, most of them from English teachers who, minutes earlier, spoke to the board about why such a curriculum was so critically important.”
Arts & Letters is anchored by award-winning books on important topics that help students build deep knowledge of the world around them. Building knowledge this way improves reading comprehension.
“I can’t think of anything more valuable than putting books in the hands of children to help teach them strong literacy practices,” the district’s chief academic officer, Sarah Reeves, stated in the article.
Prior to this adoption, teachers in the district used various free open-source resources. “Once our teachers were telling us this is what they needed, we knew we needed to take some action,” said Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Tracey Hayes.
You can learn more about Arts & Letters at https://greatminds.org/english/artsletters.
To learn more about Cabarrus County Schools, please visit: https://www.cabarrus.k12.nc.us/
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