Curriculum Changes OKd for Grades 4, 5, 6
When school resumes in September, an estimated 10,800 Garden Grove Unified School District students in the fourth through sixth grades will spend more time learning math, reading and language arts, school officials said this week.
The new curriculum plan, announced at Tuesday’s school board meeting, will increase classroom time for math from 250 to 400 minutes a week. Reading and language arts instruction will grow from 600 to 675 minutes a week, said Annelle Arthur, the district’s director of K-6 instruction.
Math, reading and language arts will make up about two-thirds of a student’s day, Arthur said, but she does not believe that other subjects, such as science, history and fine arts, will be ignored. Those topics will be weaved into the language-arts instruction, she said.
The changes stem from the district’s desire to spend more time reinforcing basic skills as well as the recommendations from two state reports calling for more reading and math in elementary school classrooms.
The plan affects students in all of the district’s 45 elementary schools.
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