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Curriculum » Curriculum & Achievement

Curriculum & Achievement

Curriculum Maps
Power Indicator Assessments
End of Course Assessments
Accelerated Reader (AR)

Portage Township Schools utilize a teacher led and driven curriculum mapping process to support student achievement. Curriculum mapping is a process of aligning the Indiana Academic State Standards using the school calendar as an organizer. Teacher committees describe or “map” a year’s curriculum in grading period “chunks” so content is consistently taught and assessed across the school district.

Curriculum mapping consistently and regularly takes place and changes made to the map are based on data. In addition, indicator assessment and End of Course or Term assessments are written by teachers and reviewed throughout the year to insure alignment with Indiana Academic State Standards.

Grade level , content level, and multiple gradelevel committees meet to review and revise our maps so that school curricula is seamless, avoiding gaps between grades, providing PTS students with high quality curriculum and instruction.

PTS uses Accelerated Reader (AR) throughout all grades in order to increase students' reading and comprehension abilities and try to give them a love for reading. It basically works in this way: children take a reading test at the beginning of the school year (NWEA (new)) which gives teachers important information about the children's reading abilities (Lexile score). Students then select books that are within their range. When they are finished with their selection, students take a short computerized quiz about their books. The number of questions are based upon grade-level and reading level of the book. Higher level books have more questions. A student is considered to master that book if he/she reaches a score of 80% correct on the quiz. (Lexile to Grade Equivalency Chart)