Curriculum

Children will be able to identify real-life connections between words and their use.** For instance, they might note places at home that are cozy, such as saying, "My blanket is cozy," or "The reading nook in my room is a cozy place to relax."

Children will be able to define words by category and by one or more key attributes.** For example, they might say, "A duck is a bird that swims," or "A tiger is a large cat with stripes."

Children will add drawings or other visual displays to their descriptions when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings. For instance, after describing their favorite animal, a child might draw a picture of that animal and label it, saying, "This is my dog, Max. He is brown and loves to play fetch!" This helps enhance their verbal descriptions and provides a clearer understanding of their ideas.

Children will participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 1 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.For example, during a small group discussion about a story they read, children might take turns sharing their favorite parts, asking questions like, "Why did the character do that?" or "What do you think will happen next?"

Children will follow agreed-upon rules for discussions, such as listening to others with care and speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion. For example, during a classroom discussion, children will practice waiting for their turn to speak by raising their hands and allowing their peers to finish before they respond. They might say, “I agree with what Maria said about the story,” demonstrating that they listened carefully.

Children will build on others’ talk in conversations by responding to the comments of others through multiple exchanges. For example, if one child says, "I loved the way the main character helped his friend," another child might respond with, "Yes! That part made me feel happy," and then the first child can build on that by saying, "I liked it because it showed how important friendship is."

Children will be taught phonological awareness as well as three-letter words and beginning and ending sounds. Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonant-vowel-consonant, or CVC) words.1 (This does not include CVCs ending with /l/, /r/, or /x/.) They will be able to produce the initial sound of a given word.

Children will blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words. For example, when given the word "cat," they will identify the onset /k/ and the rime /at/, allowing them to blend the sounds together to say "cat.

Children will count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words. For example, they might clap their hands for each syllable in a word like "elephant" (three claps) or say, "Let's say the word 'butterfly' together: but-ter-fly." They can also blend syllables together by sounding out the syllables separately and then combining them to form the complete word.

Children will demonstrate an understanding of rhyming words by identifying and producing words that rhyme. For example, they might recognize that "cat," "hat," and "mat" all end with the same sound.