Common Core

Common Core Reading & Writing Math Program Science Program Social Studies Art Program Computer Technologies World Languages Program Islamic Studies

MLS International Elementary Program: Common Core Curriculum

MLS students are guided in reading and writing through the Common Core Curriculum from KG2 to Grade 6. Students following this curriculum are college ready and career ready by the time they graduate in their later years. There are a number of factors why this curriculum prepares our students.

Children demonstrate independence:
Students can, with scaffolding at initial phases, comprehend and evaluate complex texts across a range of types and disciplines. At upper elementary they can construct effective arguments and convey multifaceted information from informational texts. Likewise, students are able to discern a speaker’s key points, request clarification, and ask relevant questions. They build on others’ ideas, articulate their own ideas, and confirm they have been understood. Through this curriculum, students learn standard English and acquire and use a wide-ranging vocabulary. More broadly, they become self-directed learners, effectively seeking out and using resources to assist them, including teachers, peers, as well as print and digital reference materials. 


Children build strong content knowledge:

Students establish a base of knowledge across a wide range of subject matter by engaging with works of quality and substance. They become proficient in new areas through research and study. They read purposefully and listen attentively to gain both general knowledge and discipline-specific expertise. They refine and share their knowledge through writing and speaking. 


Children respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline:

Students adapt their communication in relation to audience, task, purpose, and discipline. They set and adjust purpose for reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language use as warranted by the task. In upper elementary, students learn how the composition of an audience should affect tone when speaking and different disciplines call for different types of evidence from documentary evidence in history to experimental evidence in science. 


Children comprehend as well as evaluate:

Students are engaged and open-minded—but discerning—readers and listeners. They work diligently to understand precisely what an author or speaker is saying to understand an underlying message. 


Children value evidence:

Students cite specific evidence when offering an oral or written interpretation of a text. They use relevant evidence when supporting their own points in writing and speaking, making their reasoning clear to the reader or listener, and they constructively evaluate each others' use of evidence. 


Children use technology and digital media strategically and capably:

Students employ technology thoughtfully to enhance their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language use. They use online research to acquire useful information efficiently, and they integrate what they learn using technology with what they learn offline. They build strengths in a wide range of technological tools to enhance communication goals. 


Children come to understand other perspectives and cultures:

Students appreciate that the twenty-first-century classroom involves children from often widely divergent cultures and who represent diverse experiences and perspectives must learn and work together. Students actively seek to understand other perspectives and cultures through reading and listening, and they are able to communicate effectively with people of varied backgrounds. They participate in a variety of activities that enhance the appreciation of different languages and cultures. Through reading culturally relevant books and representing a variety of periods, cultures, and worldviews, students can learn about worlds and have experiences much different than their own.