Curriculum

Children will be able to capitalize dates and names of people.** For example, they might write, "My birthday is on April 5," and "I met Emily at the park."

Children will be able to use end punctuation for sentences.** For example, completing a sentence like "I have a dog" with a period, or using a question mark for "Do you have a pet?" and an exclamation point for "That is amazing!"

Children will be able to sort words into categories to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent.** For example, they might group words like "red," "blue," and "green" under the category of "colors," or "shirt," "pants," and "hat" under the category of "clothing."

Children will be able to demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.** For instance, they might discuss similes and metaphors, such as "as fast as a cheetah," and explore the meanings of words that are similar or related, like "happy" and "joyful."

Children will be able to identify frequently occurring root words and their inflectional forms.** For example, they might recognize the root word "look" and identify its inflectional forms such as "looks," "looked," and "looking."

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 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 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 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 commas in dates and to separate single words in a series.** For example, they will write sentences like "We have a party on July 4, 2023," and "I like apples, bananas, and oranges."