Confidence, character and a love for learning grow day by day in Ensworth’s Lower School.
Through close partnership with families, teachers work to understand, to guide and to nurture their students. By celebrating and encouraging areas of strength while addressing those needing development, teachers and parents work together on behalf of each child.

Skills in reading, writing and mathematics are the solid foundation for future academic achievement, but the Lower School experience only begins there. Children use their skills to think creatively and to work cooperatively. 

List of 6 news stories.

  • jazz concert

    Journey Through Jazz

    Our Lower School’s interdisciplinary study of jazz spans first and second grades, providing students with opportunities to learn more about jazz and the genre’s incredible influence. Depending on their grade level, students explored jazz in music class and homerooms, Art, Spanish, and Library classes.
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  • Responsive Classroom Teacher Language Study Groups

    Throughout the school year, teachers will meet and work through small, digestible, doable skills in small groups based on shared Responsive Classroom goals. Sitting in a cozy circle, much like students experience in Morning Meeting and Harkness discussions, faculty have the opportunity to be seen and heard, as well as ask questions and share successes. The therapeutic nature of such an environment leaves teachers empowered to go back to their classrooms invigorated and with new ideas to try. 
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  • phonetic alphabet

    K–2 Reading Curriculum

    In Grades K-2, the foundation of Ensworth’s literacy curriculum is a systematic and explicit approach to teaching young students how to read. Using the latest research on the science of reading, we teach students to “crack the code” using a combination of the Institute for Multi Sensory Instruction’s (IMSE) Orton-Gillingham-based phonics program, Heggerty phonemic awareness, decodable readers, and a multisensory approach to reading acquisition. Ensworth’s innovative approach to literacy combines a strong research-based foundation along with a joy of reading. With extensive classroom libraries, multiple opportunities to read and be read to, and a focus on developing comprehension, students are positioned well to be lifelong readers.
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  • Sukey johnson kindergarten

    The Kindergarten Program

    Each week, kindergarteners engage in different exercises of the reading curriculum; the three-part drill, learning a new concept, red words and language comprehension, which are all taught through an Orton-Gillingham-based phonics program. The Heggerty curriculum is also integrated into the reading curriculum which gives students daily bursts of phonemic awareness reinforcement. Kindergarten students enjoy many opportunities to read and be read to. Whole class read-alouds, weekly trips to the library, guided reading, and small group collaboration allow students to develop and strengthen the skills necessary to become lifelong readers.
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  • mosaic arts in concert

    Mosaic Cross-Curricular Unit

    In the Lower School, teachers across Chinese, music, and library collaborate in the cross-curricular "Mosaic" project.
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  • Singapore Math groupings

    Learn Singapore Math

    Our Singapore Math curriculum is based on intellectual curiosity with number sense. Students first learn the traditional “borrow and carry” algorithm when adding and subtracting three digit numbers. Later, the teacher will revisit the same problems, challenging students to find new ways to look at the problems and solve them mentally. Because students spend considerable time in first grade analyzing the numbers that add up to ten, they tend to have a flexibility and proficiency with mental math.
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