Curriculum

Children will be able to use conventional spelling for words with common spelling patterns and for frequently occurring irregular words.** For example, they might spell words like "cat," "dog," and "happy" correctly, as well as irregular words like "said" and "was."

Children will be able to use verbs to convey a sense of past, present, and future** by constructing sentences such as "Yesterday I walked home," "Today I walk home," and "Tomorrow I will walk home."

Children will be able to spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness and spelling conventions.** For example, if a child hears the word "bicycle," they might spell it as "biksel" based on their understanding of the sounds in the word.

Children will be able to use frequently occurring adjectives** in their writing and speaking, for example, describing a dog as "big," "friendly," or "playful."

Children will be able to determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 1 reading and content, choosing flexibly from an array of strategies.For example, when reading a story, they might figure out that "bat" can mean both a flying animal and a piece of sports equipment by considering the context of the sentence.

Children will be able to use frequently occurring conjunctions** such as "and," "but," "or," "so," and "because" to connect ideas in sentences, for instance, saying "I want to play outside, but it is raining."

Children will be able to use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase. For example, they might read the sentence, "The cat sat on the mat and took a nap," and understand that the word "sat" means to rest because of the surrounding words.

Children will be able to use determiners** (e.g., articles like "a" and "the," and demonstratives like "this" and "that") in their sentences. For example, they might say, "I see the dog" or "This is my favorite book."

Children will be able to use frequently occurring affixes as a clue to the meaning of a word. For example, when they see "unhappy," they can recognize that the prefix "un-" means "not," helping them understand that "unhappy" means "not happy."

Children will be able to use frequently occurring prepositions** (e.g., during, beyond, toward) in their speaking and writing. For example, they might say, "The cat is under the table" or "We will play beyond the park."