Eighth Grade

A family guide to the standards for eighth grade developed by Kentucky Department of Education can be found here.

In eighth grade your child's learning is divided into a progression of units or clusters that will lead to understanding of mathematics in three major areas:

1. Formulating and reasoning about expressions and equations, including modeling an association in bivariate data with a linear equation, and solving linear equations and systems of linear equations

• Students use linear equations and systems of linear equations to represent, analyze, and solve a variety of problems
• Students recognize equations for proportions (y/x = m or y = mx) as special linear equations (y = mx + b), understanding that the constant of proportionality (m) is the slope, and the graphs are lines through the origin
• Students understand that the slope (m) of a line is a constant rate of change, so that if the input or x-coordinate changes by an amount A, the output or y-coordinate changes by the amount m A.
• Students also use a linear equation to describe the association between two quantities in bivariate data (such as arm span vs. height for students in a classroom)
• At Eighth Grade, fitting the model, and assessing its fit to the data are done informally. Interpreting the model in the context of the data requires students to express a relationship between the two quantities in question and to interpret components of the relationship (such as slope and y-intercept) in terms of the situation
• Students strategically choose and efficiently implement procedures to solve linear equations in one variable, understanding that when they use the properties of equality and the concept of logical equivalence, they maintain the solutions of the original equation
• Students solve systems of two linear equations in two variables and relate the systems to pairs of lines in the plane; these intersect , are parallel, or are the same line
• Students use linear equations, systems of linear equations, linear functions, and their understanding of slope of a line to analyze situations and solve problems

2. Grasping the concept of a function and using functions to describe quantitative relationships

• Students grasp the concept of a function as a rule that assigns to each input exactly one output
• Students understand that functions describe situations where one quantity determines another
• Students can translate among representations and partial representations of functions (noticing that tabular and graphical representations may be partial representations), and they describe how aspects of the function are reflected in the different representations

3. Analyzing two- and three-dimensional space and figures using distance, angle, similarity , and congruence, and understanding and applying the Pythagorean Theorem

• Students use ideas about distance and angles, how they behave under translations, rotations, reflections, and dilations, and ideas about congruence and similarity to describe and analyze two-dimensional figures and to solve problems
• Students show that the sum of the angles in a triangle if the angle formed by a straight line, and that various configurations of lines give rise to similar triangles because of the angles created when a transversal cuts parallel lines
• Students understand the statement of the Pythagorean Theorem and its converse, and can explain why the Pythagorean Theorem holds, for example, by decomposing a square in two different ways
• Students apply the Pythagorean Theorem to find distances between points on the coordinate plane, to find lengths, and to analyze polygons
• Students complete their work on volume by solving problems involving cones, cylinders, and spheres.

To access math resources to support your child, use the drop menu from above or click here.

In the area of Reading, there are four critical components in which your child will focus his/her learning as a sixth grader. The instruction in your child's classroom through the reading units will help your child increase skill development in the following:

1. Phonics and Word Study:

• Students will be able to identify, take apart, or decode words with a variety of open and closed syllables, and words that have a wide variety of very complex spelling patterns.
• Students will understand many English words are derived from new inventions, technology, or current events.
• Students will recognize and use metaphors that have become traditional sayings and in which the comparisons are not evident and use words as metaphors and similes to make comparisons.
• Students will demonstrate an understanding of words with Greek and Latin roots.
• Students will employ strategies to read many technical words that are difficult to decode and for words that are seldom used in oral language and are difficult to decode.
• Students will recognize and use endings for adjectives that add meaning or change the adjective to an adverb.
• Students will recognize and use a large number of spelling patterns frequently found in grade level text. Students will notice, use, and understand
  • frequently appearing long vowel patterns that appear in multi-syllable words.
  • other vowel patterns that appear in multi-syllable words, and understand that some words have double consonants in the pattern.
  • possessives that add an apostrophe and an "s' to a singular noun, that its does not use an apostrophe, and that a plural possessive like women uses an apostrophe and an s.
  • synonyms and antonyms, homographs and homophones.
  • the concept of plurals and plural forms.
  • abbreviations.
  • multiple contractions with not and have.
  • decode words with irregularly spelled patterns.
  • read multi-syllable proper nouns that are difficult to decode.

2. Comprehension:

• Students will read and understand a full range of genres, including biographies, fantasy, and hybrid genres (combinations of different genres).
• Students will be able to sustain reading over several days, remembering details and revising interpretations as new events are encountered.
• Students will begin to recognize and understand satire, parody, and allegory and purposes and characteristics.
• Students will notice and understand the author's use of idioms, figurative and descriptive language, use of irony and connotative meanings, word choice, craft across text, and the role of the setting.
• Students will notice and discuss the meaning of symbolism when used by a writer to create texts, including complex plots in fiction and the organization of the text in nonfiction.
• Students will identify the author's use of literary devices such as exaggeration, imagery, and personification.
• Students will know and understand that the topics within texts go well beyond the readers' personal experiences and content knowledge.
• Students will understand that most of the content is carried by the print rather than pictures.
• Students will gain important information from longer texts with complex plots, multiple characters and episodes, and long stretches of descriptive language and dialogue.
• Students will notice how setting is important in a story, and understand how the writer built interest and suspense across a story.
• Students will track the actions and interactions of characters, including dialogue, to create ideas and predict problems and solutions.
• Students will follow multiple characters in different episodes, inferring their feelings about each other, and using evidence from the text to support their understanding of characters.
• Students will follow and remember a series of events over a longer text in order to understand the ending.
• Students will recognize and track multiple mature themes that focus on problems of preadolescents or issues of society, and require an understanding of cultural diversity.
• Students will know that many themes they read will evoke alternative interpretations and focus on human problems.
• Students will identify important ideas and information across longer texts with chapters and sometimes multiple texts, and be able to organize important information in summary form in order to remember and use them as background knowledge in reading or for discussion and writing.
• Students will use readers' tools (table of contents, headings, glossary, chapter titles, author's notes, etc.) to gather information and construct meaning.
• Students will assess whether a text is authentic and consistent with life experience or prior knowledge, including how the text reflects the lives of preadolescents or adolescents.
• Students will the writer's choice of words that are not English and reflect on the reasons for these choices and how those words add to the meaning of a text.
• Students will notice an author's regional dialect and analyze how it adds to the authenticity of the text or characters.
• Students will summarize texts at intervals during the reading of a longer text, selectively summarizing information in a text, pulling out the most important information or ideas and facts focused by the reader's purpose.
• Students will mentally form categories of related information
• Students will construct summaries that are concise and reflect the important and overarching ideas and information in texts.
• Students will adjust their reading process texts with difficult and complex layout.
• Students will identify important ideas and determine a main idea, central lesson, moral, or lesson and explain how it's conveyed using particular details from the text.
• Students will demonstrate understanding of characters, using evidence from the text to support statements.
• Students will use multiple sources of information together to solve new words.
• Students will search for information in illustrations, graphics, title chapters, etc., to support text interpretation and understanding.

3. Vocabulary:

• Students will process complex sentences that contain prepositional phrases, introductory clauses, lists of nouns, verbs, or adjectives.
• Students will use context clues to determine multiple word meanings in texts.
• Students will acquire many new vocabulary and content specific words introduced, explained, illustrated, or found in the glossary.
• Students will read words used figuratively, and words with connotative meanings that are essential to understanding the text.
• Students will read and understand words that represent abstract ideas in text.
• Students will read and understand words used in regional or historical dialects and some words from languages other than English.
• Students will read and understand multiple words with two, three, or multiple syllables, plurals, contractions, possessives, inflectional endings, complex letter-sound relationships, complex spelling patterns, and compound words.
• Students will use the meaning of individual words to predict the meaning of compound words, including metaphors, similes, and idioms.
• Students will use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with same root.

4. Fluency:

• Students will read on-level text silently, with purpose and understanding, as oral reading is well established.
• Students will actively listen to different genres (poems, fables, folktales, science articles, etc.) read aloud fluently; vary their speed, reading with good momentum, slowing down and speeding up for various purposes.
• Students will determine effective strategies to use to decode unfamiliar words.
• Students will use context to aid in word recognition and understanding.
• Students will pause appropriately to reflect meaningful phrasing in response to punctuation; use rising and falling tones in a way that is related to text meaning and punctuation.
• Students will read dialogue with phrasing and expression that reflects understanding of characters and events.
• Students will use multiple sources of information (language structure, meaning, fast word recognition) to support fluency and phrasing.

To access math resources to support your child, use the drop menu from above or click here.