Through our partnership with the UCSF Dyslexia Center, the San Francisco Unified School District Private/Parochial Assessment Department, and Jennifer Katz, Inc., we seek to be able to accommodate learning needs at every grade level through both pull-out intervention and within the general education classroom. Our Literacy Program, which encompasses Reading, Math, and Speech and Language Pathology, works to identify at-risk learners and begins research-based interventions as early as Quarter One in Kindergarten.
Enrollment in the Math and Reading sectors of the Literacy Program is not dependent on LD designation. Students enrolled are of two types: 1) students with skill gaps (discovered through universal screening and assessment in K-3 for Reading and K-4 for Math) who are enrolled and exited once they reach grade-level proficiency; and, 2) students who are long-term enrollees due to language impairment and/or learning disability or ADHD which require varying levels of intervention, oversight, and accommodation through eighth grade.
Mission Dolores Academy is committed to literacy education grounded in the Science of Reading. Our foundational reading teachers Orton-Gillingham trained and follow a Structured Literacy scope and sequence meant to prepare students for strong word reading. In addition, our general literacy curriculum in K-8 continues in that response to the Science of Reading, building strong vocabulary and world knowledge that supports strong reading comprehension.