5-8 academics

Students learn to use history as a timeline and context for other subjects.

Note-taking and listening skills are exercised, as are the development of quality questions. 

Academic training in how to respond to questions cross the various subjects. 

Students read quality literature each week, to expand their personal library and vocabulary. They learn to analyze literature and authors' various literary devices and tools, from metaphor and symbolism, to perspective and plot.

Middle grades pupils study composition and Latin to hone their language expression.  Classroom engagement, presentation, and defense serve to improve their communication skills.

Science offers students the opportunity to observe,  to explain, and to communicate process thinking.

They study Formal Logic to learn how to define terms well, to create quality statements, and to organize thoughts into effective arguments. At the same time, they learn to identify and to avoid poor arguments and logical fallacies. 

Junior High academic skills are really adult skills. 

Students are honing skills they will use the rest of their academic career and, in fact, the rest of their lives. 

• The ability to compare and to contrast two or more items or concepts
• Summarization of increasingly complex information
• Outlining to organize thoughts before composing them
• Articulation of facts and support in clear and strong language
• Forming and knowing clear definition between similar terms, avoiding ambiguity and vagueness.
• Precise language for concise, on-target statements
• Skills of defense and address, through individual defense, debate, and mock trial exercises.
• Language expression in strong, vivid, and mature vocabulary

Reading quality literature, continuously and intentionally, is the hallmark of a quality education.

An important component and classical aspect of Lake Pointe's curriculum is its strong emphasis upon literature. Students are trained from the early years to be constantly reading quality literature.

• Parent read-alouds and read-alongs are encouraged and used in the elementary and middle grades.
   
• Students have reading assignments during the weekly assignments, both at home and and in the classroom. 
   
• There is also assigned reading over the summer, over the academy's week-long breaks, and for an hour each weekend.
   
• Graduating seniors will possess an entire library of time-honored literature, allowing them to be well-read, exposed to historical and classical cultural ideas, and able to appreciate the numerous cultural references to well-known literature.

   Sixth graders read the following or similar, as selections that integrate with their Middle Ages History studies (MH) and with biblical and moral discussion issues

• The Bronze Bow (MH)
• Pictures of Hollis Woods
• The Westing Game
• Sounder
• A Door in the Wall (MH)
• The Magician’s Nephew (MH)

Seventh graders read the following or similar, as selections that integrate with their Early Modern History studies and with biblical and moral discussion issues

• The Witch of Blackbird Pond
• Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
• Pilgrim’s Progress
• A Christmas Carol
• Treasure Island
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• The Hobbit

Eighth graders read the following or similar, as selections that integrate with their Modern History studies and with biblical and moral discussion issues

• Call of the Wild
• American / World Short Stories Unit
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Part 1)
• The Hiding Place
• The Old Man and the Sea
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Fahrenheit 451