Foundational Skills
Print Awareness: Demonstrate understanding of print concepts (right/left, top/bottom, return sweep, etc.); Recognize that written words represent spoken words; Recognize features of a sentence.
Phonological Awareness: Phoneme Isolation; Produce Rhyming Words
Phonics: Short /o/, /c/, /h/
Fluency: Read text with appropriate expression and rate by grouping words together.
Language: Print uppercase and lowercase letters; Write and draw about the text
Reading Unit 3: Readers Use Superpowers
Topic 1: Readers Use Superpowers to Read Familiar Books
In this topic, students will be learning and using many "superpowers" needed to be able to more independently read their decodable texts. Teachers will model these strategies through shared reading and interactive read aloud experiences. Teachers will model how to get ready to read by taking a picture walk and making predictions. Discussions as a class and in partnerships about prior knowledge and experiences, predictions, as well as asking and answering questions will help develop students' oral language skills, which in turn will help improve their comprehension. Students will also be working on tracking print and thinking about the letters and their associated sounds as they blend words. Finally students will encounter more opportunities to practice reading high frequency words in context.
Writing Unit 3: Writing for Readers
Foundational Skills
Phonological Awareness: Phoneme Categorization and Identification; Phoneme Blending, Substitution, and Addition
Phonics: Consonant Digraphs /th/, /sh/, /-ng/, /ch/, /-tch/, /wh/;
Three-Letter Blends scr, spl, spr, squ, str
Fluency: Read orally to build fluency; Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
Language: Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence; Inflection Endings; Alliteration; Word Choice
Reading Unit 3: Learning About the World by Reading
Topic 1: Getting Started Reading Informational Books and
Topic 2: Tackling Tricky Words
As students move into this unit, they will be shifting from reading fiction texts to reading informational texts. To start his unit, students need to understand the purpose of reading nonfiction, which is to learn important information. They will see how nonfiction books are set up differently than fiction books. Students will also spend time identifying text features and learning how they help you better understand and put information together. Learning to use a Table of Contents is important for first grade readers. Students will also learn that words can not only be tricky to decode, but also tricky to understand. They will utilize strategies such as zooming in on pictures, diagrams, bold words and glossaries, as well as rereading to self monitor their understanding of their nonfiction texts.
Writing Unit 2: Writing Reviews
Topic 2: Persuasive Reviews & Topic 3: Persuasive Book Reviews
Students will continue to write reviews, trying to persuade their readers to share their opinion for the chosen topic. They will learn to write introductions that catch their readers attention and to make comparisons to help support their opinions. Students will also recommend authors and books they think others should read. The tricky part is to capture their readers' attention without giving away the entire plot of the book they are recommending.
Foundational Skills
Phonological Awareness: Blend and Segment; Add,
Delete and Substitute Sounds
Phonics: R-Controlled Vowels (/er/, /or/, /eer/ like deer)
Fluency: Build Automaticity; Read Texts with Fluency
and Purpose
Language:
● Benchmark: Inflectional Ending -ing; Suffixes -less, -ful, and -ly, compound words, and contractions
● Mentor Sentences: contractions
Reader's Workshop
Reading Unit 3: Reading Informational Books
Topic 2: Identifying the Main Idea and Supporting Details
As students move into the second topic of this unit, they will begin thinking about how information from their nonfiction books fits together so they can sort it into different categories or "mental containers." Students will use these categories, as well as noticing words that repeat, to identify the main idea of a text and to find details that support the main idea. Using three column notes (topic, main idea, and supporting details) is an excellent strategy to help students organize their thinking while reading. Students will also work on identifying problems and solutions while reading nonfiction, as well making connections - really zooming in on text-to-world connections.
Writer's Workshop
Writing Unit 3: Lab Report and Informational Science Books
Topic 2: Writing to Teach Others About Our Discoveries
As students continue to write like scientists, they will be using prior knowledge and experiences to make a hypothesis and plan a new science lab report. Students can still write about an activity completed in class (volcano models, land in motion, sturdy structures, etc.) versus setting up a new experiment. The purpose of the science lab report is to help students use step-by-step directions and precise vocabulary to teach someone else how to recreate the experiment and to share their results and learning with their readers.
Each reading and writing unit has both a pre and post assessment.
Reading
Starting in Unit 2, there is a new Option B pretest and an Option B post-test will be created soon. Option B takes the questions from all long-answer format to formats used in NWEA and MAP testing. Option B also allows for an electronic function that self-grades and gives students immediate feedback. You can find the Option B pre and post-tests:
- On Schoology in Coaches Corner→in the grade level folder→in the ELA folder→in the Reading Units of Study folder→in the Unit 2 folder.
The original pre and post-tests are also an option. Our curriculum teams have revised the TCRWP (spirals) pre and post assessments to match our Missouri Priority Standards. Do not use the pre and post assessments on Heinemann. You can find our revised assessments in two places:
- On Schoology in Coaches Corner→in the grade level folder→in the ELA folder→in the Reading Units of Study folder→in the Unit 2 folder.
- Linked in the curriculum by unit
Writing
On-Demands and student materials can be found on Schoology in Coaches Corner→in the grade level folder→in the ELA folder→in the Writing Units of Study folder.
MO LEAP Blocks is a resource from the state that also has assessments created for ELA
Reader's Workshop
Unit 2: Reading to Learn: Grasping Main Ideas and Text Structures. In this quarter-long unit, students will read to learn by choosing topics they are already passionate about and seeking to learn even more. In Topic 1 students will learn to find main ideas, learning that as they read more they can revise their initial thoughts to make the main idea more specific or more general.
The priority standards in this nonfiction unit focus on:
- Identifying the details or facts that support the main idea
- Using text and graphic features to locate information and make predictions
- Distinguishing point of view from what the author is trying to persuade the reader to think or do
Writer's Workshop
Unit 2: The Art of Informational Writing. This quarter-long unit builds upon the skills students have learned as writers of information in 2nd grade. It is centered on a particular type of information writing--a structured, written-to-teach, expert-based project. In Topic 1 students focus on learning how to organize the information they are learning about their topic and how to choose a nonfiction text structure to present the information.
The priority standards in this informational writing unit focus on:
- Writing informative texts that:
- Introduce a topic
- Develop the topic with facts, definitions, details, and explanations
- Use specific, relevant words that are related to topic, audience, and purpose
- Use transition words
- Create a concluding statement or paragraph
3rd Grade Word and Language Study
Word and Language Study Scope and Sequence
Word and Language Study Standards and Resources
Word and Language Study Daily/Weekly Routines
Reader's Workshop
Unit 2: Reading the Weather, Reading the World. This quarter-long unit blends science content and nonfiction reading and research skills as students learn about extreme weather and natural disasters. In Topic 1 students focus on HOW to reading nonfiction, looking at different nonfiction text structures and ways nonfiction texts can be hard.
The priority standards in this nonfiction reading unit focus on:
- Using evidence from the text to explain the author's purpose
- Explaining how an author uses language to present information to influence what the reader thinks or does
- Using multiple text features to locate information
- Explaining explicit and implicit relationships among ideas in texts
Writer's Workshop
Unit 2: Boxes and Bullets. In this quarter-long opinion writing unit, students will learn a variety of strategies for introducing their topics, and students will learn to provide reasons to support their opinions, as well as facts and details to elaborate on these reasons. In Topic 1, students focus on the structure for opinion essay writing and learn how to develop a thesis.
The priority standards in this opinion writing unit focus on:
- Writing opinion texts that:
- Introduce a topic in an introductory paragraph
- State an opinion and provide reasons for the opinion supported by facts and details
- Use specific and accurate words that are related to the topic, audience, and purpose
- Use transitions to connect opinion and reason
- Organize the supporting details/reasons into introductory, supporting and concluding paragraphs
- Applying a research process is also a priority standard.
4th Grade Word and Language Study
Don't forget about the Word and Language Study documents available to use for planning and instruction. These are linked here and also in Schoology in Coaches Corner→in the 4th grade folder→in the Curriculum Planning Documents folder→in the ELA Documents folder.
Word and Language Study Scope and Sequence
Word and Language Study Standards and Resources
Word and Language Study Daily/Weekly Routines
Reader's Workshop
Unit 2: Tackling Complexity: Moving Up Levels of Nonfiction. This quarter-long unit focuses on the ways that 5th grade nonfiction becomes more complex. In Topic 1 students focus on how increasing complexity of main ideas, vocabulary, and text structure make nonfiction reading harder as students access higher levels of text. Students investigate growing complexity by looking at different levels of The Amazing Octopus text (levels 1 - 8 found in Coaches' Corner→5th grade folder→ELA folder→Reading Units of Study folder→Unit 2 folder→Resources folder).
The priority standards in this unit focus on:
- Using multiple text features and graphics to locate information
- Analyzing how the pattern of organization of a text influences the relationships
- Integrating information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or speak knowledgeably
- Evaluating if the author's purpose was achieved
- Using reasoning to determine the logic of an author's conclusion, providing text evidence
Writer's Workshop
Unit 2: Lens of History. This quarter-long unit is designed to support students’ writing of informational texts. Teachers may choose to focus on Westward Expansion or choose an alternate topic. In Topic 1 students learn to shift between reading to collect information to note-taking to record and reflect on their research. Students also learn qualities of good informational text that teaches about history.
The priority standards in this unit focus on:
- Writing informative texts that
- Introduce a topic in an introductory paragraph
- Develop the topic into supporting paragraphs with topic sentences, facts, details, examples, and quotations
- Use an organizational format that suits the topic
- Use specific, relevant and accurate words
- Use student's original language except when using direct quotations
- Use transition words
- Create a concluding paragraph
5th Grade Word and Language Study
Don't forget about the Word and Language Study documents available to use for planning and instruction. These are linked here and also in Schoology in Coaches Corner→in the 5th grade folder→in the Curriculum Planning Documents folder→in the ELA Documents folder.
Word and Language Study Scope and Sequence
Word and Language Study Standards and Resources
Word and Language Study Daily/Weekly Routines