Shanghai Community International School

What you learn is important, but how you learn is just as important.

At SCIS, we often use the term ATL. This is an important part of the IB system, and it stands for Approaches to Learning (ATLs).

Approaches to Learning

In Language Acquisition classes, we spend a lot of time on a particular ATL called transfer skills. These lessons are centered around building up your child’s language skills, but it’s necessary for students to transfer these skills into their content classes, such as science or humanities.

As such, units throughout the year have a reflection component to help students think about how to transfer their newly acquired language skills, as well as discussions on it throughout the unit.

We encourage conversation on this topic at home with your child as they grow and develop in all their content classes.

“At the end of the day, the most overwhelming key to a child’s success is the positive involvement of parents.”

- Jane D Hull, Governor of Arizona

Learning at Home Tip:

Extensive Reading
Extensive reading can be defined as pleasure reading – students choosing a book that they can read on their own and without any expectations of a book report or comprehension questions.

According to research, this is the best and easiest way for students to develop their language: vocabulary, grammar, fluency, and accuracy. All students in Language Acquisition have time to read extensively, and I hope this practice can be encouraged at home.