Developmental Curriculum

Lafayette Lutheran School's curriculum is developmental, meaning that the teaching and learning activities fit the individual children's needs at particular stages of their physical, mental, emotional, and social growth. This approach requires a program that will provide a variety of experiences and opportunities for the children in order to meet these needs. Too often a program is chosen, and then the children are "stuffed" into the program. It should be the other way around. Programs should be chosen to fit the children. That is one of the advantages of Lafayette Lutheran School with small classes and the freedom to follow the best educational practices. For example, several different pre-kindergarten and kindergarten reading programs have been purchased that include all the basic skills -- phonics (phonemic awareness), sight vocabulary as needed, structural analysis (singular and plural), use of context (repetition), use of configuration (shape of word -- long words, short words) and use of a type of dictionary (pictionary) -- as applied to beginning reading for those who are ready.

Pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first through sixth grade should have happy, exploratory, senses-heightening, language-filled, loving environments in which young children can satisfy their natural curiosity and continue to be excited about every new thing they learn. Care must be taken to present tasks that are challenging to children, but this should not be a time to pressure children to do tasks that ask too much of them. Tasks should be just beyond where the children are, and each may be in a different place in his/her learning. Sometimes we seem to think that if we pile a lot on children, something will sink in. Unfortunately, for most children this does not work. They instead begin to think of themselves as incapable of learning and become resentful. These attitudes are difficult to overcome. So, it is necessary to challenge but not discourage. This is where the good teacher comes in. She/he must be able to recognize when a child needs greater challenges and when it is best to proceed more slowly. This is the kind of teaching being done at LLS.