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Our Mission
Rockwood Preparatory Academy’s mission is to provide excellence and justice in education by ensuring that ALL students can demonstrate rock-solid reading, math, spelling, and writing skills. We provide a model public elementary school that dispels the myth that racial background and economic status are determinative factors in a child’s ability to reach high-levels of academic achievement.
Curriculum and Instruction at RPA
We Don't Leave Learning to Chance.
Every child who walks through our doors deserves a teacher who knows exactly how to help them grow. That's why everything we do at RPA is grounded in Direct Instruction (DI) - one of the most thoroughly researched and proven teaching methods in education today.
Direct Instruction isn't just a philosophy. It's a precise, intentional approach to teaching that removes guesswork from the classroom. Lessons are carefully designed, skills are introduced in a logical sequence, and every detail of instruction is crafted to make sure students truly understand, not just get by.
The results speak for themselves. DI is used in thousands of schools across the U.S. and around the world, and the evidence is clear: when students are taught with clarity, consistency, and high expectations, they thrive.
At the heart of Direct Instruction are five core beliefs we hold deeply:
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Every child can be taught.
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Every child can grow, both academically and in confidence.
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Every teacher succeeds when given the right tools and training.
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Students who are behind deserve to learn faster, not slower, so they can catch up and keep up.
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Clear, precise teaching prevents confusion and builds real understanding.
What Makes DI Work - and Why Your Child Will Feel the Difference
Mastery before moving on. We never rush children past something they haven't fully grasped. Each lesson is structured so that 90% of the content reinforces and deepens what students already know, while only 10% introduces something new. Skills are practiced in isolation first, then woven together into higher-level thinking. Your child builds confidence with every lesson because they're always working from a foundation of what they already know how to do.
Learning at your student's pace. No two children are exactly alike, and DI is built for that reality. If a student needs more time with a concept, teachers provide it. If a student is ready to race ahead, we accelerate. Every child moves through the curriculum at the rate that's right for them.
Programs that have already been proven. Every DI program your child uses has been field-tested with real students and revised before it ever reaches a classroom. You're not getting a theory; you're getting a curriculum that has already worked.
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We believe every child can learn to read, starting in Kindergarten.
Reading isn't magic. It's a skill, and like any skill, it can be taught. Our reading program, Reading Mastery, uses Direct Instruction to give students a rock-solid foundation in both decoding (sounding out and recognizing words) and comprehension (understanding what those words mean together).
We know that when reading feels hard, kids check out. That's why we focus first on making decoding automatic - so that by the time students are reading chapter books and complex texts, their brain has the bandwidth to focus entirely on meaning, not mechanics.
Each lesson weaves together:
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Phonemic Awareness
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Letter-Sound Relationships
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Sounding Out & Word Recognition
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Vocabulary
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Oral Reading Fluency
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Comprehension & Critical Thinking
Teachers regularly assess each student's progress, and no one gets left behind. Struggling readers receive targeted practice; strong readers are challenged to keep growing.
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At RPA, language arts is about more than grammar rules and spelling tests. Our students learn to communicate; to read closely, write clearly, research thoughtfully, and speak with confidence.
In Kindergarten and First grade, students receive reading and language instruction in small, skill-based groups, ensuring every child gets the focused attention they need. In Second through Fifth grade, students receive instruction in ability-based, whole group settings. All students are taught using the Direct Instruction Reading Mastery Language Arts curriculum. This research-based curriculum emphasizes carefully planned lessons designed around sequenced learning increments and clearly defined lessons. Students also build their skills in English Language Arts through standards-based lessons directly aligned to State Standards.
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We've all heard the debate: should children discover math on their own, or be taught it directly?
At RPA, we've made our choice, and the research backs us up.
We use Connecting Math Concepts (CMC), a program that teaches math the way it actually makes sense: skills first, then understanding, then application. Students learn how to do something, then learn why it works, and then practice using it to solve real problems. This builds the kind of deep, flexible math thinking that carries students all the way through high school and beyond.
To make sure math facts become second nature, every grade also uses Rocket Math - a fast-paced, sequential practice program that uses worksheets, oral practice, and timed assessments to build fluency and confidence with the foundational facts that underpin all of math.
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Spelling Mastery is a six-level Direct Instruction spelling series that teaches students to spell and understand language. Students don't just memorize lists for Friday's test and forget by Monday.
The program blends three powerful approaches:
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Phonemic - connecting sounds to letters in predictable, reliable ways
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Whole-word - mastering the words that follow their own rules
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Morphemic - understanding roots, prefixes, and suffixes to unlock thousands of new words
By the time RPA students move on, they don't just know how to spell; they understand how language works. that's a skill that pays off for life.
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