Reading

Unit 1: Embracing Reading Workshop as Experienced Readers (Aug-Sept)

In this unit students will apply a variety of comprehension skills before, during, and after reading in order to sustain comprehension as text become increasingly more complex. The teacher establishes routines, rules and expectations so that independent readers develop. While students are reading both fiction and nonfiction, they should read with agency citing text evidence to support the analysis work they do uncovering author’s purpose, identifying theme and central idea.

Unit 2: Character Interactions and Transformations (Sept-Oct)

The focus of this unit will take students beyond looking at a character within a text to studying the character throughout a text, across chapters or series in order to analyze how point of view, setting and circumstances affect the development of the plot; and how the character responds to these circumstances. Students will analyze how the author’s craft develops the character or narrator’s point of view throughout the text. Students will be expected to use inferring to further uncover character development and literary devices, such as foreshadowing. To do this students need to infer from the language of the characters, infer from the setting, use relevant details to visualize and to determine importance. As a result of this unit, students will gain the understanding that characters are complicated and by reading widely, patterns emerge.

Unit 3: Analyzing Factual Information (Oct-Nov)

The focus of this unit is analyzing in detail how text features elaborate an event, an individual or a key idea. Students will use information that is presented not just in text but within features to answer questions they pose or those posed to them. Students will pay close attention to how a point of view is presented leading way to uncovering author bias in later units. Additionally during this unit, students apply the comprehension strategies of questioning, determining importance, and inferring to identify important details and makes inferences about the information in charts, graphs, and maps. Students continue to justify thinking with evidence from the text. This unit provides an opportunity to make cross content connections to science and social studies as students transfer and apply this type of reading across the day.

Unit 4: What's the Point? Main Idea and Details (Nov-Dec)

The focus of this unit is is to determine the main idea in fiction, nonfiction, and persuasive text. Students are able to find the main idea of a section, paragraph and entire text. Synthesizing many comprehension strategies, students are able to identify the main idea that leads to uncovering the theme or central idea from this work. They will be able to explain the theme or central idea, noting when author's perspective influences the message. At this time of the year, grade level text is more complex with characters or authors that have bias and do not reveal all sides of the story or an issue. Readers must determine if they trust the author's point of view. Novels often include implied statements about our world and life- leading the reader to consider how reading changes thinking.

Unit 5: Analyzing Nonfiction Text Structure (Dec-Feb)

The focus of this unit is for students to integrate information they are reading from print, charts/graphs, visuals or anecdotes in nonfiction in order to identify the structure, and then explain how this helps the author to develop ideas. Students will also analyze the author moves that note perspective and uncover author claims and arguments. Students will be able to note which of these are supported by evidence and which might uncover author bias. Students will use a range of resources, reference materials, online and electronic resources, interviews, in order to locate information as well as answer questions around a topic they are reading about. This unit is less about identifying the text structures and more about using text structure to determine what the author determines to be the main idea of the text. This unit provides an opportunity to make cross-content connections to science and social studies topics.

Unit 6: Pulling It All Together: Higher Level Comprehension (Mar-Apr)

The focus of this unit is to read across different genres with greater independence, knowing which comprehension strategies to use with which type of text. The nonfiction reading has students using multimedia elements to ask and answer questions and process technical pieces of information. Students are expected to integrate and reflect on how they use all the comprehension strategies they have acquired and practiced throughout the year. Students uncover author bias and determine if information is supported by evidence or merely an assumption. The fiction reading allows for students to analyze how text structure contributes to the development of the theme and how the characters change and evolve within these different structures. As proficient readers students will be able to navigate multiple text structures within the same text. Texts at this level may contain content vocabulary, dialects, and concepts that are challenging to students.

Unit 7: Tackling Complex Texts as Experienced Readers (Apr-May)

The focus of this unit is for students to identify point of view and how the techniques the author use influence the storyline. Students will be asked to think about symbolism in setting, identify flashbacks, identify foreshadowing, and infer why an author uses these techniques. Students uncover hidden bias and learn to question the truths written in the text. Additionally, students clarify and understand technical vocabulary and concepts, use reading skills to understand texts with heavy content loads, interpret various types of graphics that may be complex, and navigate multiple text structures within the same text.There are often multiple plot lines that students need to hold on to in the text in order to comprehend. As a culmination within this unit students should be able to compare and contrast different works of literature to include poems, dramas, historical fiction, fantasy, and biography, and how their approaches to theme may be similar or different.