Lower School

Lower School

The curriculum of Memorial Lutheran School drives toward a five-fold end. Students are to be wise unto salvation, masters of language, well-rounded and eager students, discerning with sound reason for the sake of love toward the neighbor. 

The academic program of the Lower School develops all five of these, but the main content can be divided into three subsets: the Trivium (also called the Language Studies), the Quadrivium (also called the Mathematical Studies), and the Studia Humanitatis (also called the Humanities Studies). These subsets comprise all of the academic subjects. The Language Studies include phonics, spelling, reading skills, literature, English grammar, Latin grammar, and writing. The Mathematical Studies include science and mathematics at all levels. The Humanities Studies include religion (theology), history, geography, literature, music, and art.

Kindergarten through Sixth grade makes up the Lower School at Memorial Lutheran School. These are the years in which the building blocks for all other learning are laid. In these years, the mind is ready to absorb information. Children at this stage of learning to enjoy memorization where they learn all the basic facts, such as the rules of phonics and spelling, rules of grammar, the vocabulary of foreign languages (Latin), stories of history and literature, descriptions of plants and animals, and the human body, and the facts of mathematics. This information makes up the basic building blocks as they begin preparing for Upper School. 

Testing/Assessment

The Comprehensive Testing Program (CTP) is administered to students in 3rd-6th grade in April. CTP5 is an assessment in reading, listening, vocabulary, writing, and mathematics. Verbal and quantitative reasoning subtests are part of the CTP beginning. The CTP helps compare content specific, curriculum-based performance to the more conceptual knowledge base found in reasoning tests.