Foundational Skills
Print Awareness: Demonstrate understanding of print concepts (right/left, top/bottom, return sweep, etc.); Recognize that written words represent spoken words; Recognize that sentences are made up of words; Recognize and name ending punctuation marks.
Phonological Awareness: Phoneme Isolation; Distinguish syllables in spoken words.
Phonics: Short /b/, /u/, /r/
Fluency: Read text with appropriate expression and rate by grouping words together.
Language: Print uppercase and lowercase letters; Write and draw about the text; Use inflectional ending -ed to determine the meaning of the word.
Reading Unit 3: Readers Use Superpowers
Students will continue to focus on becoming better readers by utilizing their phonological awareness and phonics skills to decode. Students should be focusing on the print on the page and continuing to look at each sound to blend successively. Students will also check their understanding by asking and answering questions about the texts they read and ones they listen to during interactive read aloud. Teachers should encourage students to reread their decodable books and passages to build fluency. Partnerships can begin reading together, coaching each other when words are difficult to read and talking about their passages to monitor their comprehension.
Writing Unit 3: Writing for Readers
Foundational Skills
Phonological Awareness: Phoneme Categorization, Blending, and Substitution
Phonics: Long /a/ and Long /o/ (VCe); Soft c and g
Fluency: Read orally to build fluency; Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension; Read at an appropriate rate.
Language: Identify and explain descriptive language in a poem; Use strategies to confirm or self-correct word understanding using homophones; Identify author's purpose; Read and understand contractions with 'not'
Reading Unit 3: Learning About the World by Reading
Topic 3: Reading Words and Pictures to Get the Big Idea
Topic 4: Working Together in Informational Book Clubs
As students wrap up this unit, they will be using different strategies to help read and understand nonfiction texts. Students will use the pictures - paying close attention to diagrams, labels, and captions - to learn even more information from the text. Students will also ask questions to help solidify their understandings as they read. They will then move into informational book clubs. Groups will work together to decode tricky words, gather information about a chosen topic, make connections, and use heading to help identify main ideas.
Writing Unit 3: Authors as Mentors
Topic 1: Living Like an Author & Topic 2: Writing Longer and Stronger
Students will find story ideas in everyday events, zooming in on one small moment and writing about it with great detail. They will sketch their stories, practice telling them across the pages and their fingers, and then write sentences using simple transitions. Students will learn how to end their piece with a concluding statement. The class will then study craft moves of their mentor texts such as speech bubbles, sound words, and repetition and will try them on their own writing as they revise.
Foundational Skills
Phonological Awareness: Blend and Segment; Add,
Delete and Substitute Sounds
Phonics: C+le Syllables; Diphthongs /oi/ and /ou/
Fluency: Build Automaticity; Read Texts with Fluency
and Purpose
Language:
● Benchmark: Inflectional Ending -es (with changing y to an i)
Reader's Workshop
Reading Unit 3: Reading Informational Books
Topic 3: Finding Similarities and Differences in Texts and
Topic 4: Readers Present the Information Learned
As students wrap up this unit, they will read multiple books on the SAME, not similar, topics to find similarities and differences. Students should be able to identify information that is found in both books, as well as pieces of information or facts found in one, but not the others and then put that information together to help them learn more about the topic. Students will work in partnerships or small groups to research a topic of their choosing. It is helpful for this topic to be the same topic they are writing about in their informational science books. Lessons from The Reading Strategies can be used to support these partnerships and their research. Students should then share out their learning with the class through presentations or an author's celebration in writing.
Writer's Workshop
Writing Unit 3: Lab Report and Informational Science Books
Topic 3: Writing Informational Science Books
Students will use their knowledge of how to write like a scientist to write information books related to a science topic. Many teams choose to have students write about Earth science, either quick or slow changes to land. Students should plan their chapters, including an introduction and conclusion. They should be able to use precise language to teach their readers about these earth events. Encourage your writers to use text features, as well as comparisons in their writing, to help make the information more clear to 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 2 students learn that skilled readers read informational text to learn and also are active readers, "talking back" to the author. Informational readers think about a text by having a conversation in their own mind. In Topic 3 the nonfiction focus changes from informational (expository) text to narrative nonfiction (biography and autobiography).
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 2 the focus is on drafting and revising. Students will revise by learning concrete strategies and using those strategies to lift the level of all the work they have done to date. They will draw upon strategies taught in prior grades, but then learn newer, more complex revision strategies such as using grammar with meaning and tapping research for elaboration. In Topic 3 the focus shifts to publishing and in Topic 4 students transfer all they have learned about writing informational text to a new topic, working with more independence.
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 2 students read and take notes about extreme weather and natural disasters. They close the topic by sharing what they have learned. In Topic 3 students choose a different--but related--topic of extreme weather or natural disasters. They apply what they learn to this new topic with more independence.
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 2, students start to collect evidence for their opinion and draft their paragraphs. Each paragraph should start with a reason supported by multiple piece of evidence. Paragraphs are connected by transitions. In Topic 3, students will create a persuasive piece, revising their opinion piece or starting with a new piece. They will apply all they have learned so far and work with more independence.
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 2 students will start inquiry projects on the topic of their choice. They will apply what they have learned about reading nonfiction, synthesizing within and across texts as they collect information. Students will also learn to analyze the author's craft in their texts.
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 2 students will write their research report. Students will use texts to gather information as well as using texts to study for ideas in their own informational writing, using the texts as writing mentor texts.
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