General Information about our Language Arts Curriculum
Synonym and Antonym Games
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We use the reading series Storytown to teach reading skills, spelling, and vocabulary. It is divided into themes that last five weeks each. The first four weeks we learn new skills, and the fifth week is a review week. Each week we have a spelling list, a vocabulary list, and a comprehension focus.
There will be tests every Friday. These tests will cover the comprehension skill of the week, the spelling words, and the vocabulary words. Spelling and vocabulary words will be sent home the Friday before in your child's Friday Folder. They can also be downloaded here on the website. Is your child having difficulty learning new vocabulary? I created spelling and vocabulary lessons on Spelling City for each story. Click here to visit our Spelling City page with spelling and vocabulary lists for all the stories. Comprehension
Making sure that your child has a deep understanding of what he or she reads is extremely important. We work on a variety of comprehension strategies. We spend two weeks introducing the strategy, and then practice it throughout the year. The strategies we focus on include Identifying Character Traits, Understanding Nonfiction Text Features, Determining the Author's Purpose, Identifying Facts and Opinions, Determining Cause and Effect,
You can help improve your child's comprehension by discussing with your child the books he or she reads. Ask open-ended questions about the book, such as, "Why do you think the character did that? How does she feel right now? How do you know? What do you think will he do next? What evidence in the text helped you come up with that answer?" Spelling Each week your child will get 20 spelling words. 15 regular words and 5 extra credit words. Your child will also take a pretest on Monday |