Highlights

• Integrated Thematic Learning
• Thematic Standards-Based Units
• Multiple Learning Styles
• Cooperative Group Work
• Hands on Projects and Field Trips
• Ongoing Assessments
• Home School Connections
• Daily Quran and Arabic Instruction

California State Standards

At Silicon Valley Academy we use the California State Standards as guidelines for the skills and concepts that need to be taught at each grade level.

Our teaching strategies empower the teaching staff to bring this content “to life”. The textbook is a resource, along with field trips, artifacts, videos, children’s literature and the internet to help teach information and concepts.

The content is the ‘what’ we teach; the GLAD strategies are the ‘how’ we do it. These strategies go beyond finding the right answers, a typical textbook activity, to developing critical thinking skills and the metacognitive process. Meta cognition, or thinking about the thinking process, results in higher level thinking skills for our students. Thus, students are actively involved in their learning process and develop a love for learning!

Project GLAD

Guided Language Acquisition Design, GLAD, provides the organizational structure for our integrated, balanced approach to learning. It is an instructional model that is firmly rooted in language acquisition and brain development research and has been field tested for over 15 years. The strategies promote positive, effective interactions among students and between teachers and students.

Project GLAD at Silicon Valley Academy stands for and promotes and educational setting that produces effective, literate citizens of a global society. It is a model of respect for diversity not only in language and ethnicity, but also in thinking, learning, and personal experiences. It provides support for students to face change or success they may encounter, effectively and confidently.

GLAD is a...

• United States Department of Education, Project of Academic Excellence
• California Department of Education Exemplary Program
• Model reform program for the California School Reform Design
• The recommended k-8 project for the California State Superintendent’s Task Force on successful implementation of Proposition 227

Silicon Valley Academy has implemented the GLAD model for both English and Arabic language development since 1997 and has achieved tremendous results for our diverse student population.

The certified Project GLAD Key Trainers on staff have trained teachers for the teaching department at Stanford University, in addition to working with other universities in California. They have trained over 1000 teachers in public school districts and Islamic schools across the nation.