Literacy
Literacy
EL Education, Fundations
EL Education, Fundations
Embedded Files
Overview K-5
Newton Public Schools Elementary Literacy department provides students with excellent, evidence-based and data-driven literacy instruction in reading, writing, communicating, and critical thinking that strives to be culturally responsive, equitable, and representative of all students. Becoming literate is a complex process. To this end, teachers provide systematic, explicit, and multisensory literacy instruction encompassing:Overview K-5
- Foundational skills (phonological awareness, phonics, decoding, encoding)
- Comprehension (vocabulary, cultural and content knowledge, specific strategies, volume reading, and discussion)
- Writing skills (composing and transcribing)
- Bridging processes (fluency, vocabulary, morphology, concepts of print)
- Materials that meet students’ needs and that provide access to complex, grade-level texts
EL Education
EL Education
EL Education: Module 1
EL Education: Module 1
Module Focus
Module Focus
- Building Literacy in a Collaborative Classroom
Module Topic
Module Topic
- Tools and Work
Guiding Questions
Guiding Questions
- Why do we need tools?
- How do habits of character help us do work?
- How do we create a magnificent thing?
Performance Task
Performance Task
Product: A Magnificent Thing for the Classroom
Format: Creation and informational writing
Central Student Texts
Central Student Texts
- The Little Red Pen
- The Most Magnificent Thing
- Tools
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Reading
Reading
- Ask and answer questions about key details in a text
- Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details
- Use illustrations and details in a text to describe key details, characters, setting, or events
Writing
Writing
- Write informative/explanatory texts that name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure
Speaking & Listening
Speaking & Listening
- Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 1 topics and texts
- Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions
- Build on others' talk in conversations by responding to comments through multiple exchanges
- Ask questions to clear up any confusion about the topics and texts under discussion
Language & Foundational Skills
Language & Foundational Skills
- Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses
- Sort words into categories to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent
- Define words by category and by one or more key attributes (e.g., a duck is a bird that swims)
EL Education: Module 2
EL Education: Module 2
Module Focus
Module Focus
- Learning through Science and Story
Module Topic
Module Topic
- A Study of the Sun, Moon, and Stars
Guiding Questions
Guiding Questions
- Why do authors write about the sun, moon, and stars?
- What patterns can we observe in the sky?
- How do authors use their knowledge and observations to write a story?
Performance Task
Performance Task
Product: Revising and Editing "What the Sun Sees” Narrative
Format: Narrative Poems
Central Student Texts
Central Student Texts
- Summer Sun Risin'
- What Makes Day and Night
- What the Sun Sees, What the Moon Sees
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Reading
Reading
- Ask and answer questions about key details in a text or information presented orally or through other media
- Retell stories, including key details, demonstrating understanding of their central message or lesson
- Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details
- Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events
Writing
Writing
- Write informative/explanatory texts in which I name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure
- Write narratives recounting two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure
- Focus on a topic, respond to questions and suggestions from peers, and add details to strengthen writing as needed
Speaking & Listening
Speaking & Listening
- Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question
- Build on others' talk in conversations by responding to comments through multiple exchanges
- Describe people, places, things, and events with relevant details, expressing ideas and feelings clearly
Language & Foundational Skills
Language & Foundational Skills
- Use common, proper, and possessive nouns, personal, possessive, and indefinite pronouns, and frequently occurring adjectives
- Use singular and plural nouns with matching verbs in basic sentences
- Use verbs to convey a sense of past, present, and future
- Produce and expand complete simple and compound sentences
- Use end punctuation for sentences
- Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase
- Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading, and responding to texts
EL Education: Module 3
EL Education: Module 3
Module Focus
Module Focus
- Building Expertise Through Research
Module Topic
Module Topic
- Birds' Amazing Bodies
Guiding Questions
Guiding Questions
- What makes a bird a bird?
- How do birds use their body parts to survive?
- How do we build our research skills and share our learning?
Performance Task
Performance Task
Product: Expert Bird Riddle Card and Scientific Drawing Cards Matching Game
Format: Informational Riddle
Central Student Texts
Central Student Texts
- Birds
- Feathers: Not Just for Flying
- Little Kids First Big Book of Birds
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Reading
Reading
- Ask and answer questions about key details in a text
- Identify the main topic and retell key details of a text
- Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text
- Know and use various text features to locate key facts or information in a text
- Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas
Writing
Writing
- Write informative/explanatory texts in naming a topic, supplying some facts about the topic, and providing some sense of closure
- Participate in shared research and writing projects
- Respond to questions and suggestions from peers, and add details to strengthen writing as needed
- Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings
Speaking & Listening
Speaking & Listening
- Ask questions to clear up any confusion about the topics and texts under discussion
Language & Foundational Skills
Language & Foundational Skills
- Use frequently occurring adjectives and conjunctions
- Use end punctuation for sentences
- Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness and spelling conventions
- Ask and answer questions to help determine or clarify the meaning of words and phrases in a text
EL Education: Module 4
EL Education: Module 4
Module Focus
Module Focus
- Contributing to Community
Module Topic
Module Topic
- Caring for Birds
Guiding Questions
Guiding Questions
- Why should we care about birds?
- How do characters in stories help care for birds?
- Why do people have different opinions about birds?
- How can people care for birds so they can live and grow?
Performance Task
Performance Task
Product: Feather Friend Saver
Format: Informational paragraph and Scientific Bird Illustration
Central Student Texts
Central Student Texts
- A Place for Birds
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Reading
Reading
- Ask and answer questions about key details in a text or information presented orally or through other media
- Identify the reasons an author gives to support points in a text
- Ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud
- Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details
- Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories
Writing
Writing
- Write informative/explanatory or opinion texts naming a topic or book, supplying some facts about the topic, or stating an opinion and supplying a reason for the opinion, and providing some sense of closure
- Participate in shared research and writing projects
- Focus on a topic, respond to questions and suggestions from peers, and add details to strengthen writing as needed
Speaking & Listening
Speaking & Listening
- Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question
Language & Foundational Skills
Language & Foundational Skills
- Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling
- Use common, proper, and possessive nouns, personal, possessive, and indefinite pronouns, and frequently occurring adjectives and conjunctions
- Capitalize dates and names of people
- Print all upper and lowercase letters
- Spell untaught words phonetically, using phonemic awareness and spelling conventions
- Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases, choosing flexibly from an array of strategies
- Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading, and responding to texts
- Ask and answer questions to help determine or clarify the meaning of words and phrases in a text
- Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase
- Use frequently occurring affixes as a clue to the meaning of a word
- Identify frequently occurring root words and their inflectional forms
Fundations Overview
Fundations Overview
During daily 25-minute whole-group lessons, students receive comprehensive instruction in letter names, sounds, and formation. They study print concepts, learning how written language works within the context of texts. Lessons also focus on developing phonological awareness, identifying and manipulating the sounds of language, as well as vocabulary development. Through phonics instruction, students gain skills in decoding and encoding words.
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
- Segment syllables into up to 5 sounds (phonemes)
- Name sounds of primary consonants, consonant digraphs, and short and long vowels when given letters
- Name and write corresponding letter(s) when given sounds for consonants, consonant digraphs, and short and long vowels
- Print all uppercase and lowercase letters
- Distinguish long and short vowel sounds
- Name sounds for r-controlled vowels, vowel digraphs and vowel diphthongs
- Use conventional spelling for words with common spelling patterns and for frequently occurring irregular words
- Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness and spelling conventions
- Read and spell 100 high frequency words, including irregular words (Trick Words)
- Identify word structures such as blends, digraphs, base words, suffixes, syllable types (closed and vowel-consonant-e syllables)
- Read and spell CVC, CCVC, CVCC, CCVCC, CVCe words, compound words and other words with two-syllables by breaking them into syllables, words with -s, -es, -ed, -ing suffixes when added to non-changing basewords
- Apply correct ending punctuation and capitalization rules for the beginning of sentences and names of people, places, and dates
- Identify and explain new meanings for familiar words and newly taught words
- Produce and expand complete simple and compound declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences in response to prompts
- Identify frequently occurring root words and their inflectional forms
- Sort words into categories to gain a sense of the concept the category represents
- Define words by category and by one or more key attributes
- Apply beginning dictionary skills
- Identify real-life connections between words and their use
- Use verbs to convey a sense of past, present, and future
- Read controlled stories with fluency, expression, and understanding
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