LITERACY
EL
"... our new K-5 Language Arts curriculum is a comprehensive, standards-based core literacy program that engages teachers and students through compelling, real world content and builds equitable and inclusive learning opportunities for all students." - Expeditionary Learning
For modules and units of study, please see the diagram I've created here:
PHONICS
Phonics is a crucial component of literacy development that supports learning HOW to read and HOW to write because it focuses on how words work. Students should come into first grade with able to: identify all lowercase and uppercase letters by name and sound, and have a bank of known sight words.
In first grade, phonics work is heavy because students will be required to grow many levels in reading. Students will need to be able to: segment words into parts to help them read.
This looks like:
consonant blends: sp, tr, bl, st, dr, sw, sl, etc.
2-letter parts with vowels: an, am, it, is, op, og, un, ud, et, ed, etc.
digraphs: th, ch, sh, ph, wh
long vowels (cvcE): ex: cavE, polE, statE, smilE, conE, pinE
3-letter blends: spr, str, scr, spl, etc.
endings: -ing, -s, -ed
vowel teams: -ai, -ay, -ea, -ee, -ie, -oa, -oo, -oe, -oi, -oy, -ue, etc.
I recommend simply googling "first grade phonics activities" for easy ideas to practice this work at home. There are also several apps I recommend as well such as : Feel Electric!, Learn to Read (Starfall), Wizard Word for Kids
WRITING
For writing, we do a workshop model lesson. This breaks the lesson into a few powerful components: a link to prior work, explicit teaching, modeling, independent work (and student/teacher conferring for feedback), and sharing. Below is an condensed summary of what our units will look like for the whole year.
Lucy Caulkins Writing Curriculum Grade 1 Units
"The first-grade units are written for children who are just tapping into their powers as readers as well as writers, and believe they can do anything.
Students begin with the always-popular unit Small Moments: Writing with Focus, Detail, and Dialogue. In this unit students take the everyday events of their young lives and make them into focused, well-structured stories, then they learn to add life into the characters by making them talk, think, and interact by adding dialogue.
In Unit 2, Nonfiction Chapter Books, students enter the world of informational writing as they combine pictures and charts with domain-specific vocabulary and craft moves to create engaging teaching texts.
In Unit 3, Writing Reviews, students create persuasive reviews of all sorts—pizza restaurant reviews, TV show reviews, ice cream flavor reviews, and finally book reviews that hook the reader, clearly express the writer’s opinion, and bolster their argument in convincing ways.
In From Scenes to Series: Writing Fiction, the 4th and final unit of the Grade 1 series, students learn to “show, not tell” and use action, dialogue, and feelings to create a whole series of fiction books modeled after Henry and Mudge.