Course Outline

LITERATURE

Comprehension Strategies

• Ask questions and support answers by connecting prior knowledge with information found in, and inferred from, the text
• Make connections to personal experiences
• Recall major points in the text and make and modify predictions
• Summarize readings

Comprehension Skills

• Recognize the author's purpose
• Identify the speaker or narrator in a selection
• Recognize cause and effect
• Compare and contrast across selections and genres
• Draw conclusions
• Make and explain inferences
• Identify problems characters face in stories and identify how they solve them
• Distinguish fact from opinion
• Identify and sequence steps in a process
• Identify the main idea and supporting details
• Recognize story elements: character, setting, plot (conflict and resolution), and theme

Informational Materials

• Use titles, tables of contents, chapter headings, glossaries, and indexes to locate information in text
• Follow simple, multiple-step written instructions (e.g., how to assemble a product or play a board game)
• Locate information in charts, diagrams, maps, captions, illustrations, and photos

Literary Response

• Recognize different genres: biography, drama, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry
• Determine what characters are like by what they say and do, and by how the author or illustrator portrays them

Poetry

• Identify line, stanza, and rhyme
• Identify and use similes
• Identify and analyze how a poet uses language to appeal to the senses, create imagery, and set tone
• Recognize literary techniques such as personification, alliteration, and onomatopoeia

Listening and Speaking Strategies

• Retell, paraphrase, and explain what a speaker has said
• Read prose and poetry aloud with fluency, rhythm, and expression
• Connect and relate prior experiences, insights, and ideas to those of a speaker

Analysis of Oral and Media Communications

• Compare ideas and points of view expressed in broadcast and print media
• Distinguish between the speaker's opinions and verifiable facts

LANGUAGE SKILLS

Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics

Sentences

• Identify four kinds of sentences: statement, question, command, and exclamation
• Use the appropriate punctuation mark for each kind of sentence
• Identify the subject and predicate of a sentence

Nouns

• Classify a noun as a person, place, or thing
• Identify nouns in a sentence
• Distinguish between common and proper nouns
• Capitalize proper nouns
• Change regular and irregular singular nouns into plural nouns
• Change a singular noun into a singular possessive noun by adding 'f;s

Verbs

• Identify verbs in a sentence
• Identify action verbs
• Classify verbs as being or action
• Identify being verbs
• Identify helping and main verbs in sentences
• Name and identify the four principal parts of verbs: present, present participle, past, and past participle
• Identify principal parts and use the correct forms of irregular verbs
• Use correct forms of is, are, was, and were

Adjectives

• Identify adjectives in sentences
• Add adjectives to describe nouns in sentences
• Identify comparative adjectives in sentences
• Identify adjectives that tell exactly how many and adjectives that tell about how many
• Identify the articles a, an, and the in sentences
• Complete sentences using this or that

Paragraph Skills

• Use action verbs in sentences
• Add interest to writing by using vivid adjectives
• Combine sentences with the same or nearly the same verb
• Combine sentences with the same subject
• Combine short sentences into one longer sentence using a comma with and or but

Research Skills

• Understand how to use a library catalog
• Understand a dictionary entry
• Apply alphabetizing skills in using dictionary guide words to find an entry
• Identify key words to use in locating information on a subject in an encyclopedia
• Use a thesaurus

Pronouns

• Identify subject pronouns in sentences
• Replace subjects with subject pronouns
• Replace plural nouns with correct plural pronouns
• Replace nouns that come after a verb with me, us, him, her, and them
• Complete sentences with the correct possessive pronoun (mine, ours, yours, his, hers, and theirs)
• Correctly use I or me

Adverbs

• Identify adverbs and their uses
• Use good and well correctly in sentences

Synonyms, Antonyms, and Homophones

• Replace words with synonyms
• Identify antonyms to given words
• Use homophones correctly

Abbreviations and Titles

• Write abbreviations for addresses
• Write abbreviations for units of measure
• Write abbreviations for months of the year and days of the week
• Identify and correctly choose titles for a man or woman
• Apply italics to book titles in a word processed document
• Underline book titles when handwriting
• Use quotation marks around titles of poems

Commas and Quotation Marks

• Use commas correctly in various ways
• Use quotation marks correctly in various ways

Contractions

• Form contractions by combining words and replacing omitted letters with an apostrophe
• Complete sentences with correct homophones

Vocabulary and Word Study

• Understand and apply the definitions of given words
• Write sentences to answer questions on a reading selection that uses the words in context
• Write original sentences that use words correctly in context
• Make connections between words and ideas
• Identify and explain verbal relationships

HANDWRITING

• Hold pencil correctly
• Write lowercase and uppercase cursive letters correctly on standard-ruled paper
• Space letters, words, and sentences properly
• Copy short passages legibly and accurately

LISTENING AND SPEAKING

• Recite a poem from memory, read a composition he or she has written, and read a brief passage from a favorite book
• Learn and use techniques for effective oral presentations
• Maintain purposeful discussion (agree and disagree constructively, state ideas clearly and fully using complete sentences and proper grammar, synthesize and build on the ideas of others, explain and defend ideas)
• Understand and follow oral directions

COMPOSITION

Writing as a Process

• Understand and practice writing as a process (prewriting, drafting, revising, proofreading, publishing)

Paragraph Skills

• Identify topic sentence and details
• Understand paragraph unity and development

Writing Friendly Letters

• Identify the parts of a friendly letter
• Understand the audience and purpose for friendly letters and thank you notes
• Address an envelope

Using Rubrics

• Identify the characteristics of a composition in each point of rubric
• Score sample writings papers using a rubric

Writing a Personal Narrative

• Write a personal narrative in response to a given prompt
• Use the writing process to develop and improve a personal narrative

Descriptive Writing

• Write a descriptive essay in response to a given prompt
• Use the writing process to develop and improve a descriptive essay

Persuasive Writing

• Distinguish fact from opinion
• Understand the need for evidence to support a position
• Write a persuasive essay in response to a given prompt
• Use the writing process to develop and improve a persuasive essay

Steps in a Process

• Explain the steps in a process in response to a given prompt
• Use the writing process to develop and improve an essay that explains steps in a process

Report Writing

• Gather and organize information relevant to a specific topic
• Write a book report
• Use the writing process to develop and improve a report
• Use techniques for effective oral presentations to deliver a report

Story Starters

• Write a story given a story starter
• Use the writing process to develop and improve a story

SPELLING

• Words with short vowels
• Words with the suffixes -s and -es
• Words with ng and nk
• Words with the spellings of long a—a-consonant-e, ai, ay, a, eigh
• Words with the spellings of long i—i-consonant-e, i, igh, ie, y
• Words with the spellings of long o—o-consonant-e, o, oe, ow, oa, ough
• Words with the spellings of long e—ee, ea, econsonant- e, ie, y
• Words with the spellings of /yu/—u, u-consonant-e, ew, ue
• Words with the spellings of /oo/ as in spoon—oo, uconsonant- e, u, ue, ou
• Words (homographs) with the spellings of /ou/—ou, ow; spellings of /oi/—oy, oi
• Words with the spellings of /ur/, including er, ir, ur, ear
• Words with y pronounced long e or long i
• Words ending in y with the vowel suffixes -es, -ed, -er, -ing
• Words that drop silent e before adding vowel suffix -ed, -ing, -er
• Words that double their final consonant before adding vowel suffix -ed, -ing, -er, and do not double after cvvc or cvcc
• Words with soft c and g
• Words with al pronounced /aw/, and se and ze pronounced /z/
• Words with triple consonant blends scr, spr, spl, str, squ
• Words with digraph blends shr, thr, nch; digraph ph; trigraphs dge and tch
• Words with the consonant suffixes-less, -ty, -ment and the contractions I’m, he’s, she’s, it’s
• Words with the consonant suffixes -ly, -ful, -ness
• Words with the prefixes re-, un-, under-, dis-
• Words with le and el
• Words with r-controlled vowels
• Words with the spelling all and the sound /aw/
• Words with /oo/ sound as in school and book
• Words with the sounds /ed/, /t/, /d/ for the suffix -ed
• Words with the suffix -ing
• Words with wr, kn; homophones; words ending in ic
• Words with ea pronounced as long a, long e, short e

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