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Kindergarten Shared Reading Modules

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Module 1 Overview

During Dialogic Reading, students will learn story element vocabulary (setting, characters, events), familiar and unfamiliar settings, and how the setting influences characters and events. The teacher will model how to construct a retelling that includes a beginning, middle, and end. Students will discuss the relationship between the setting, characters, and events during Text Connections discussions.

Phonological Awareness instruction asks students to read and memorize poems with complex language to boost their understanding of English grammar. Students will practice phonological awareness through rhyming and syllable tasks for the first 4 weeks (Lessons 1–20). Beginning in Lesson 21, students will practice searching for the initial sounds learned during Word Study instruction.

Word Study will help students build early reading foundational skills. Students will sing and recite the entire alphabet and match letters in classmates’ names to the alphabet during the first 4 weeks (Lessons 1–20) of instruction. Beginning with Lesson 21, students will practice phonemic segmentation by orally segmenting initial sounds from words and then associating them with other words that contain the same initial sound. They will also begin handwriting instruction for one letter each day. This type of compare and contrast instruction and handwriting practice will continue throughout the year.

Word Study Assessments will begin during Lesson 25. Teachers will present picture cards from the week’s Word Study lessons, name the picture and ask the students to write the beginning sound they hear. The assessment will determine how accurately students can represent initial sounds in words.

Print Concepts instruction will help students practice crucial early literacy skills using nursery rhymes that they will read and memorize. The teacher will model finger-point reading to begin developing students’ concept of words. With teacher support, students will practice essential directional concepts such as left to right and top to bottom reading, and the return sweep.

Students will combine the knowledge and skills gained from Shared Reading and ELA to complete the Module 1 Culminating Task: Little Critter Retelling. The task will ask students to demonstrate their story elements knowledge, early foundational skills, sentence construction ability, and comprehension of the Dialogic Reading text, My Trip to the Hospital. They will identify subjects and predicates, match subjects and predicates related to story events, and “retell” the book by sequencing events with teacher support. Successful completion of the culminating task will demonstrate cross-curricular literacy knowledge acquired throughout Module 1.

Each section of Shared Reading targets an important emergent literacy goal. We have a tool for teachers to use during instruction to document student progress for individuals Kindergarten: Emergent Literacy Skills (Individual) Rubric or the whole class Kindergarten: Emergent Literacy Skills (Group) Rubric. We recommend that teachers use it once per month.

Module 2 Overview

Students will progress through three units in this module: Insects, Meeting New Friends, and Sounds in Our World. The Insects unit will help students learn about insect characteristics, how pictures contribute to the text, and the differences between informational and fantasy texts. The Meeting New Friends unit will focus on story characters and the different ways that authors depict them. The Sounds in Our World unit will support learning about how authors use onomatopoeia to represent sounds in texts and create sensory details.

Dialogic Reading instruction will continue to develop students’ language competence through engagement with texts and meaningful discussion. Students will begin to take more responsibility for retelling the text after reading. Instead of fully modeling the retelling, the teacher will provide students with sentence frames, allowing them to use their language to retell the book with support.

Phonological Awareness instruction will continue to boost students’ understanding of English grammar through reading and memorizing poems with complex language. Students will also continue working with rhyming words, segmenting and blending syllables, and searching for letters they learn during Word Study instruction. Beginning with Lesson 8, students will manipulate onsets and rimes by substituting initial sounds in rhyming words. Starting with Lesson 23, students will identify rhyming words more independently by explaining why a list of words rhymes or does not rhyme.

Word Study instruction will build foundational skills by engaging students in compare and contrast spelling instruction and handwriting practice. Students will continue to segment initial sounds from words presented orally and then associate them with other words with the same initial sound. They will also continue to focus on the letters themselves during handwriting instruction each day and assess how accurately students can represent initial sounds in words through Weekly Word Study assessments.

Print Concepts instruction will expose students to complex vocabulary and syntax through reading nursery rhymes. Students will practice directional concepts such as reading from left to right, top to bottom, and the return sweep with lessening teacher support.

Students will combine the literacy knowledge and skills they gained from Shared Reading and ELA to complete the Module 2 Culminating Task: What’s Your Opinion? In this task, students will create opinion sentences (with teacher support) based on Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King (from ELA) and Rap a Tap Tap (from Shared Reading). They will then illustrate their writing pieces to demonstrate their understanding. The task allows students to demonstrate the comprehension, letter sound, sentence construction, and genre writing skills learned in Module 2.

Each section of Shared Reading targets an important emergent literacy goal. We have a tool for teachers to use during instruction to document student progress for individuals Kindergarten: Emergent Literacy Skills (Individual) Rubric or the whole class Kindergarten: Emergent Literacy Skills (Group) Rubric. We recommend that teachers use it once per month.

Module 3 Overview

Students will progress through three units in this module: Fantasy Characters, Author Study: Ezra Jack Keats, and Life Cycles. The Fantasy Characters unit will review that story characters are the people, animals, or imaginary beings who engage in dialogue and move the action along in a story. They will learn that fantasy characters have attributes or behaviors that could not occur in reality. The Author Study: Ezra Jack Keats unit will examine how Keats portrays realistic characters through the writing and illustrations in his books. The Life Cycles unit will include nonfiction books that provide information about the life cycles of frogs, butterflies, and plants.

Dialogic Reading instruction will continue to build students’ language competence through engagement with texts and meaningful discussion. Students will retell each text using teacher-supplied sentence frames that offer structured language support through providing vocabulary and syntax.

Phonological Awareness instruction will again boost students’ understanding of English grammar through reading and memorizing poems with complex language. Students will continue working with rhyming words and syllables and searching for letters they learn during Word Study instruction. Beginning in Lesson 15, students build phonological awareness at the phoneme level by blending and segmenting the sounds in words chosen from the poem.

Word Study instruction will continue to build foundational skills by engaging students in compare and contrast spelling and handwriting tasks. In Lessons 1 through 10, students will segment initial sounds from orally presented words, associate them with words with the same initial sound, and focus on the letters themselves during handwriting instruction each day. Weekly Word Study assessments continue to assess how accurately students can represent initial sounds in words.

Beginning with Lesson 11, Word Study instruction will shift to short vowel word families. Students will compare and contrast words by sound and letter pattern. Teachers will still use header cards, but word cards will replace picture cards. The instruction follows a 5-day sequence. On the first and second days, the goal is to introduce the header cards with the focal patterns and then sort the words by sound. On the third and fourth days, the teacher uses an Elkonin box to demonstrate how to segment an orally presented word into phonemes and blend orally presented phonemes. After this oral practice, the teacher models decoding for the students and provides student practice. The fifth day includes a Word Study assessment comprised of words practiced throughout the week and two transfer words that assess students’ ability to generalize their letter sounds and patterns to new words.

The 5-day sequence for handwriting instruction will also change beginning with Lesson 11. The first day will no longer include handwriting instruction. Students will skywrite 3–5 Word Study words on the second day. They will use whiteboards to practice writing 3–5 words on the third day and then use paper to print 3–5 words on the fourth day. On the last day of instruction, students will practice handwriting by completing their Word Study Assessment.

Print Concepts instruction will continue to expose students to complex vocabulary and syntax and practice concepts of print through reading nursery rhymes. They will practice directional concepts such as reading from left to right, top to bottom, and the return sweep, working toward independence.  

Students will combine the knowledge and skills gained from Shared Reading and ELA to complete the Module 3 Culminating Task: All About Plants. For this task, students must construct an informative writing piece about the plant life cycle based on information from How a Seed Grows and In a Nutshell (from ELA) and How Plants Grow (from Shared Reading). Students will demonstrate their handwriting and spelling skills by writing words to construct sentences. This task allows students to display their comprehension and their developing letter sound, sentence construction, and genre writing skills.

Each section of Shared Reading targets an important emergent literacy goal. We have a tool for teachers to use during instruction to document student progress for individuals Kindergarten: Emergent Literacy Skills (Individual) Rubric or the whole class Kindergarten: Emergent Literacy Skills (Group) Rubric. We recommend that teachers use it once per month.

Module 4 Overview

Students will progress through two units in this module: Making a Difference and Animal Sidekicks. The Making a Difference unit includes biographies and realistic fiction texts with main characters who make a difference in the world. The Animal Sidekicks unit will introduce students to sidekick characters who assist the main character in completing the action in a story and examine how the author portrays them in each unit text.

Dialogic Reading instruction will continue building students’ language competence through engagement with texts and meaningful discussion. Instruction will require students to take more responsibility for the retelling after reading by asking students to respond to guiding questions from the teacher.

Phonological Awareness instruction will again ask students to read and memorize poems with complex language to boost their understanding of complex English grammar. Students will continue working with rhyming words and syllables and searching for letters they learn during Word Study instruction. Beginning in Lesson 15, students will build phonological awareness at the phoneme level by blending and segmenting the sounds in words chosen from the poem.

Word Study activities will once again build students’ foundational skills by engaging them in compare and contrast spelling instruction and handwriting activities. They will practice sorting by sounds, to use the Say It and Move It strategy to segment and blend words, and engage in weekly Word Study Assessments. 

Print Concepts instruction will continue exposing students to complex vocabulary and syntax and practice print concepts through reading and memorizing nursery rhymes. Students will practice directional concepts such as reading from left to right, top to bottom, and the return sweep independently.  

Students will combine the knowledge and skills they have gained throughout the year to complete two culminating tasks: Book of the Year and Wonderful You! The Book of the Year culminating task will ask students to plan, write, and revise a Book of the Year commercial. The Wonderful You culminating task will ask students to write a narrative about how they have grown in their literacy skills over the school year. Both tasks will ask students to consolidate literacy learning across the curriculum and demonstrate what they have learned throughout the year.

Each section of Shared Reading targets an important emergent literacy goal. We have a tool for teachers to use during instruction to document student progress for individuals Kindergarten: Emergent Literacy Skills (Individual) Rubric or the whole class Kindergarten: Emergent Literacy Skills (Group) Rubric. We recommend that teachers use it once per month.

Skip to overview for: Module 1| Module 2 | Module 3 | Module 4

Kindergarten ELA Modules

Module 1 Overview

Module 1 will include three units: Listening to Stories, Learning New Information, and Coping with Problems. Unit 1: Listening to Stories will introduce students to narrative elements and ask them to begin matching subjects and predicates to construct opinion sentences about module texts. Unit 2: Learning New Information will introduce students to informative text elements and ask them to construct descriptive sentences by matching subjects and predicates. Unit 3: Coping with Problems will introduce students to characters coping with problems and how solving problems relates to narrative structure. At the end of Unit 3, students will use text information and sentence construction skills to complete a culminating narrative writing task with teacher support.

The Module 1 Culminating Task: Little Critter Retelling asks students to demonstrate their knowledge of story elements, sentence construction ability, and comprehension of the Dialogic Reading text, My Trip to the Hospital. Successful completion of the culminating task will demonstrate book comprehension, knowledge of story elements, and early sentence formation skills acquired in Module 1.

There are many opportunities to assess writing skills in this unit, but we do not recommend that teachers use them all. Each writing task has a genre-based Rubric and an Kindergarten: Editing and Revision Rubric suggested. We recommend that teachers decide together which of these pieces to assess, and use others for providing formative feedback. We recommend that all teachers use the Kindergarten: Little Critter Retelling Rubric in this Module to document student progress in content knowledge, literacy knowledge, and integration of knowledge and ideas.

Bookworms English Language Arts is full of opportunities for students to learn and use language. To keep track of their progress, we have designed a Speaking and Listening Rubric with two versions: one to focus on a specific standard for all students (Kindergarten: Speaking and Listening (Group) Rubric) and another to focus on a specific student for all standards (Kindergarten: Speaking and Listening (Individual) Rubric). Whichever you choose, we recommend that you document growth once per month during this module.

Module 2 Overview

Module 2 will include four units: Our Changing Environment, Learning About America, Funny Animal Characters, and Being Brave. Unit 1: Our Changing Environment includes informational texts that include facts and information about the ever-changing environment around us. The books and writing tasks in the unit work together to help students learn more about how authors convey information in books and how to convey information in their writing.

Unit 2: Learning About America allows students to learn about American symbols and history by reading four informational books and writing about what they have learned during genre writing lessons. The books and writing tasks in the unit help students learn more about how authors convey facts about a topic in books and how to convey and retell information in their writing.

Unit 3: Funny Animal Characters will help students learn how authors use fantasy characters to create humor and funny situations by reading fantasy texts and writing a narrative featuring a silly animal character. The books and tasks in the unit work together to help students learn about the traits and behavior of funny animal characters, how authors use those traits and behaviors to create humor in books, and how they can create humor in their writing by including funny characters.

Unit 4: Being Brave will allow students to learn how bravery is depicted in stories and demonstrated in real life. The stories and tasks in this unit help students understand the meaning of bravery, analyze the attributes of characters and people, form an opinion based on them, and write about their views with teacher support.

Note that there is a change in the writing lessons procedure beginning in this module. We ask students to start using letter sounds they learned from Word Study to spell words in their writing instead of arranging premade subjects and predicates. We provide extensive teacher modeling and scaffolded support to help students transition to independent spelling.

The Culminating Task: What’s Your Opinion? will ask students to demonstrate the literacy skills learned in Module 2 in several ways. Students will demonstrate their comprehension of the information learned about the character traits of the famous Americans in the Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King, and Rap a Tap Tap texts by creating an opinion sentence and corresponding illustration using facts learned from the books. Students will demonstrate their knowledge of the opinion genre and sentence construction by generating sentences that convey an opinion. They will demonstrate their handwriting and spelling skills by writing words to construct sentences. Completing the task will allow students to demonstrate their comprehension of Module 2 texts and their developing letter sound, sentence construction, and genre writing skills.

There are many opportunities to assess writing skills in this unit, but we do not recommend that teachers use them all. Each writing task has a genre-based Rubric and an Kindergarten: Editing and Revision Rubric suggested. We recommend that teachers decide together which of these pieces to assess, and use others for providing formative feedback. We recommend that all teachers use the Kindergarten: What’s Your Opinion? Rubric in this Module to document student progress in content knowledge, literacy knowledge, and integration of knowledge and ideas.

Bookworms English Language Arts is full of opportunities for students to learn and use language. To keep track of their progress, we have designed a Speaking and Listening Rubric with two versions: one to focus on a specific standard for all students (Kindergarten: Speaking and Listening (Group) Rubric) and another to focus on a specific student for all standards insert (Kindergarten: Speaking and Listening (Individual) Rubric). Whichever you choose, we recommend that you document growth once per month during this module.

Module 3 Overview

Module 3 includes four units: Learning Together, Learning About Our Past, Our Families, and Life Cycles. Unit 1: Learning Together will include three narrative books where the characters learn about something new together and three narrative writing tasks relating to the content and structure of each book. The books and writing tasks in this unit help students to understand that stories often contain a message and sequence of events.

Unit 2: Learning About Our Past will include two texts that teach about important people and events from the past and build on what students learned by composing two writing pieces. The lessons in this unit help students understand that authors sometimes write books to teach information about the past. The Read Aloud lessons help students learn information about historical figures and events. The writing lessons help students evaluate text information using the opinion genre and generalize their knowledge of the informative writing genre to their own lives.

Unit 3: Our Families will include two realistic fiction books where the characters are family members. Students will build on what they learned in the books by constructing book reviews during writing lessons. The lessons in this unit help students understand how authors create characters and events in realistic fiction. The Read Aloud lessons allow students to meet other families and characters who experience problems and situations which may be similar to theirs. The writing lessons help students evaluate stories using the opinion genre and connect what they know with what they think about the characters and events in the text.

Unit 4: Life Cycles students will present two books that will teach about the life cycle of plants. Students will build on what they learned by composing an informative writing piece and participating in the culminating writing task. The lessons in this unit help students understand that authors write to convey information. The Read Aloud lessons help students learn information about the life cycle of plants. The writing lessons help students convey information using the informative genre. The culminating task asks students to convey content they have learned across multiple texts in their writing.

An important goal in Module 3 is for students to use more complex invented spellings. They will build on previous sentence construction lessons by constructing their own sentences with a subject and predicate. As a result, students have the opportunity to apply the literacy skills they have acquired in the first two modules independently.

The Module 3 Culminating Task: All About Plants will allow students to demonstrate their comprehension of the information learned from unit texts by composing an informational text about the plant life cycle. Students will demonstrate their knowledge of the informative writing genre by constructing a writing piece that includes a topic sentence and a sentence that conveys a fact about the topic. They will show their understanding of sentence construction by creating sentences that include subjects and predicates and demonstrate their handwriting and spelling skills by writing words to construct sentences. In sum, the culminating task will allow students to demonstrate their knowledge of Module 3 texts and their developing letter sound, sentence construction, and genre writing skills.

There are many opportunities to assess writing skills in this unit, but we do not recommend that teachers use them all. Each writing task has a genre-based Rubric and an Kindergarten: Editing and Revision Rubric suggested. We recommend that teachers decide together which of these pieces to assess, and use others for providing formative feedback. We recommend that all teachers use the Kindergarten: All About Plants Rubric in this Module to document student progress in content knowledge, literacy knowledge, and integration of knowledge and ideas.

Bookworms English Language Arts is full of opportunities for students to learn and use language. To keep track of their progress, we have designed a Speaking and Listening Rubric with two versions: one to focus on a specific standard for all students (Kindergarten: Speaking and Listening (Group) Rubric) and another to focus on a specific student for all standards insert (Kindergarten: Speaking and Listening (Individual) Rubric). Whichever you choose, we recommend that you document growth once per month during this module.

Module 4 Overview

Module 4 includes two Units: Describing Our World and Wonderful You! Unit 1: Describing Our World includes three books about our environment. The unit lessons help students understand that authors and illustrators write informational pieces to describe things they see in the world around them. The Read Aloud lessons help students learn information about animals, water, and clouds. The writing lessons help students demonstrate their understanding of content by writing in the informative and opinion genres.

In Unit 2: Wonderful You, students will read five books that will help them think about all of their wonderful traits and all of the wonderful things they could do in the future. The lessons in this unit help students learn that authors and illustrators design books that can help them learn important lessons about themselves. The Read Aloud lessons help students learn about informational and narrative text structures and character traits. The writing lessons help students demonstrate their understanding of content by writing in the narrative, informative, and opinion genres. Students work on adding details to each sentence and using a checklist for editing and revision. They are encouraged to create longer writing pieces with two to three sentences over multiple days. They will begin engaging in the writing process with teacher and peer support by using the Sentence Checklist to improve their writing pieces.

Module 4 will include two culminating tasks: Book of the Year and Wonderful You. Both tasks are designed to help students apply the literacy knowledge and skills learned throughout the year. Culminating Task 1: Book of the Year will ask students to plan, write, and revise a Book of the Year commercial with teacher modeling and support. Students will apply what they have learned making meaning from texts and using spelling patterns to write words and sentences. They will also demonstrate their ability to write sentences with subjects, predicates, and details in the opinion genre about their choice for Book of the Year. They will demonstrate their speaking and listening skills through presenting their commercials and responding to other students’ commercials.

Culminating Task 2: Wonderful You! is a narrative writing task that will ask students to write about how they have changed and grown over the year as readers and writers. Students will demonstrate what they learned about sentence construction, narrative writing, themselves as readers and writers, and illustrations that convey meaning in their written products. Students will have the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of Module 4 texts and their letter sound, sentence construction, and genre writing skills through both culminating tasks.

There are many opportunities to assess writing skills in this unit, but we do not recommend that teachers use them all. Each writing task has a genre-based Rubric and an Kindergarten: Editing and Revision Rubric suggested. We recommend that teachers decide together which of these pieces to assess, and use others for providing formative feedback. We recommend that all teachers use the Kindergarten: Wonderful Me! Rubric in this Module to document student progress in content knowledge, literacy knowledge, and integration of knowledge and ideas.

Bookworms English Language Arts is full of opportunities for students to learn and use language. To keep track of their progress, we have designed a Speaking and Listening Rubric with two versions: one to focus on a specific standard for all students (Kindergarten: Speaking and Listening (Group) Rubric) and another to focus on a specific student for all standards insert (Kindergarten: Speaking and Listening (Individual) Rubric). Whichever you choose, we recommend that you document growth once per month during this module.

First Grade Shared Reading Modules

Trimester 1

Module 1 Overview

Students will progress through three units in this module: Playing Games, Animal Characters, and New Experiences. The Playing Games unit will include books that build students’ background knowledge about sports teams and friendly competition rules. The Animal Characters unit will help students learn that authors sometimes use animal characters to create humor in their stories. The New Experiences unit will introduce students to the main character, Little Critter, who will learn to cope with new situations. All three units will build literacy knowledge by introducing the structure of fiction, demonstrating that multiple texts can express the same theme, and using illustrations and key details to identify and describe story elements.

Word Study instruction will review and build on early spelling skills students learned in kindergarten. The first four weeks (Lessons 1–20) of instruction will review beginning sounds. The teacher will model how to represent sounds in writing through shared writing instruction. Spelling assessments will focus on students’ ability to represent beginning sounds when writing. Lesson 21 will mark the end of our initial sounds review and the beginning of short vowel pattern instruction. Students will practice using letter sounds to spell words during Dictated Sentence instruction. Weekly spelling tests will assess how well students spell words that contain short vowel patterns.

Text Engagement instruction will help students build fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension through repeated readings of beginner texts. The texts at the beginning of the module will contain a few words per page. However, as students grow in their word recognition skills, the number of words per page will increase, and the books will become longer.

Daily repeated readings of authentic texts will include a combination of echo, choral, and partner reading to support first graders’ early reading attempts. Initially, students will echo, then choral read the same text section on the first three days, and choral read and then partner read the same text section on the last two days. Lesson 31 marks the end of students echo and choral reading two pages at a time during the first three days of instruction. Instead, students echo read a section of a book, and then choral read the same section.

Whole class and partner discussions will allow students to demonstrate and solidify their knowledge from texts. Completing daily written response tasks will enable students to write about what they have learned and provide them with opportunities to practice their transcription and sentence writing skills.

The Module 1 Culminating Task: Fall Research Project will combine the knowledge and skills students have gained throughout Module 1 by asking students to write a collaborative research report based on information they learned from ELA texts. Students will demonstrate what they have learned during Shared Reading by using the transcription skills they practiced during Word Study instruction and applying what they have learned about making meaning from texts during Text Engagement instruction. Successful completion of the culminating task will allow students to use their developing writing skills to demonstrate the knowledge and literacy skills learned throughout Module 1.

Trimester 2

Module 2 Overview

Students will learn how authors use imaginary characters to create interest and humor in fantasy writing. Unit activities will include examining the traits of imaginary characters in each text, comparing them with other real and imaginary characters, and discussing how the character’s actions make the story more humorous or engaging.

Word Study instruction will build on the word recognition and spelling skills students learned in Module 1. Initially, instruction will focus on short vowel spelling patterns. Lesson 26 marks the beginning of initial blends and digraphs instruction.

Text Engagement instruction will continue to build fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension through the repeated reading of texts. Texts included in this unit gradually increase the number of words per page and pages per book. There is also a change in routine for reading texts beginning with Lesson 6, Danny and the Dinosaur. Instruction will begin with choral reading, and then students will reread in partners.

Whole class and partner discussions will continue to allow students to demonstrate and solidify their knowledge from texts. Completing daily written response tasks will enable students to write about what they have learned by describing characters and events, taking the perspective of characters, comparing similarities and differences between characters, retelling what they have read, and providing reasons to support opinions.

The Module 2 Culminating Task: The Best of Syd Hoff will combine the knowledge and skills students gained throughout Module 2 by asking students to write an opinion piece about their favorite Syd Hoff book. Students will demonstrate what they have learned during Shared Reading by using the transcription skills they practiced during Word Study instruction and applying what they learned from Syd Hoff texts during Text Engagement instruction. Successful completion of this task allows students to use opinion writing to demonstrate the knowledge and literacy skills acquired throughout Module 2.

Module 3 Overview

Module 3 will include two units: Telling Stories and Learning Our History. The Telling Stories unit will teach about story elements and fantasy genre characteristics. Students will practice retelling stories, making predictions, and thinking about how authors create humor in their stories during class discussions and by completing written responses. The Learning Our History unit will build knowledge about famous Americans from our nation’s history through reading biographies. Students will expand their literacy knowledge through interactions with nonfiction topics, text features, and domain-specific vocabulary.

Word Study instruction will build on word recognition and spelling skills learned in Modules 1 and 2. Lessons 1–15 will include practice with short vowels with initial blends (including affricates), and Lessons 16–30 will focus on short vowels with final digraphs and blends. Lessons 31–35 will review short vowel sounds before instruction in the VCe long vowel pattern in Lessons 36–45.

Text Engagement instruction will continue to build students’ fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension during the repeated reading of texts. However, you will notice two changes in the instructional routines for repeated readings to support students reading longer texts and more challenging genres:

• The Telling Stories unit will introduce students to longer narrative texts with sections or chapters. Students will choral read and then partner reread a book chapter on the first four instructional days, and partner read the entire book on the fifth day.
• The Learning Our History unit will include biographies with historical information and domain-specific vocabulary that may be challenging for some students. We will provide additional support for students by providing less text for daily reading and allowing two days for rereading the text.

Whole class and partner discussions will provide students the opportunity to demonstrate and solidify their knowledge from texts. Written response tasks will ask students to write about texts by describing characters and events, taking the perspective of characters, comparing similarities and differences between characters and texts, retelling what they have read, and providing reasons to support opinions.

The Module 3 Culminating Task: Wonderful Me! will combine students’ knowledge and skills from Shared Reading and ELA by asking students to write a narrative piece about how they have grown as readers and writers since the beginning of the year. Students will demonstrate what they have learned during Shared Reading by using the transcription skills they practiced and applying what they learned about what it means to be a good reader and writer throughout the year. Successful completion of this task will allow students to demonstrate the knowledge and literacy skills gained throughout Module 3.

Trimester 3

Module 4 Overview

Module 4 includes two units: Solving Mysteries and Coping with Challenges. The Solving Mysteries unit will help students learn story elements and mystery genre characteristics. Students will think about how mystery authors include clues and unexpected events to create suspense, make predictions based on clues during discussions, and demonstrate understanding of mystery elements in their written responses.

The Coping with Challenges unit will help students compare and contrast settings, characters, and events across two stories with the same main character. Students will think about how the characters face and cope with problems similar to those they face in their own lives. They will also take the perspective of characters in the book, making connections to real life in their written responses.

Word Study instruction will build on word recognition, and spelling skills learned in Modules 1, 2, and 3. Lessons 1–25 will continue VCe long vowel pattern instruction, Lessons 26–30 will teach r-controlled vowels, and Lessons 36–45 will introduce common vowel teams.

Text Engagement instruction will continue to build students’ fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension through the repeated reading of texts. Take note that the books included in this module contain more pages than in previous units. The instructional format is designed to support students’ reading of these longer chapter books. Students will choral read, and then partner reread a book chapter on the first four instructional days, and partner read the entire book on the fifth day.

Whole class and partner discussions will continue to provide students the opportunity to demonstrate and solidify their knowledge from texts. Written response tasks will enable students to write about what they have learned by describing characters and events, taking the perspective of characters, identifying similarities and differences between characters and texts, retelling what they have read, and providing reasons to support opinions.

The Module 4 Culminating Task: The Book of the Year! will ask students to choose their favorite Bookworms text from this year and write a commercial explaining why it should be “The Book of the Year.” Students will demonstrate what they learned during Shared Reading by using their transcription skills and choosing their favorite text. They will demonstrate what they learned during English Language Arts by writing opinion pieces with complete sentences. Successful completion of this task will allow students to demonstrate the knowledge and literacy skills they gained throughout Module 4 and the year.

First Grade ELA Modules

Trimester 1

Module 1 Overview

Module 1 will include three units: Becoming a Writer, Learning and Growing, and Learning about Fall. The Becoming a Writer unit will help students learn to write complete sentences and learn the elements of descriptive and opinion sentences. The Learning and Growing unit will introduce students to characters who learn and grow in realistic fiction books, narrative elements, and opinion writing. The Learning about Fall unit will include texts that help students learn about the fall season. Students will also practice writing descriptive sentences during written responses.

The Module 1 Culminating Task: Fall Research Report will ask students to write a collaborative research report based on information they learned in the Changes in Fall unit texts. Students will learn the purpose and structure of informative writing and evaluate their informative writing piece’s quality. Successful completion of the task will allow students to demonstrate text comprehension and literacy skills learned in ELA and Shared Reading.

There are many opportunities to assess writing skills in this unit, but we do not recommend that teachers use them all. Each writing task has a genre-based Rubric and an Grade 1: Editing and Revision Rubric suggested. We recommend that teachers decide together which of these pieces to assess, and use others for providing formative feedback. We recommend that all teachers use the Grade 1: Fall Research Report Rubric in this Module to document student progress in content knowledge, literacy knowledge, and integration of knowledge and ideas.

Bookworms English Language Arts is full of opportunities for students to learn and use language. To keep track of their progress, we have designed a Speaking and Listening Rubric with two versions: one to focus on a specific standard for all students Grade 1: Speaking and Listening (Group) Rubric and another to focus on a specific student for all standards Grade 1: Speaking and Listening (Individual) Rubric. Whichever you choose, we recommend that you document growth once per month during this module.

Trimester 2

Module 2 Overview

Module 2 includes two ELA units: Stories from Our Past and Making Good Decisions. Unit 1: Stories from Our Past provides information about our cultural history. The unit includes folktales and biographies about famous Americans from our past. Students will learn more about their own stories through writing book reviews and self-descriptions during writing lessons.

Unit 2: Making Good Decisions will include writing activities that help students think about making good decisions. Interactive Read Aloud books will demonstrate how people make important decisions that can change their lives and shape their future. Writing lessons will ask students to compose opinion and informative writing texts that examine how to make good decisions.

Students will demonstrate and solidify their knowledge by identifying informative and opinion writing elements and evaluating writing pieces in each genre. Students will also collaboratively engage in each stage of the writing process by planning, drafting, revising, and editing together.

Students will combine the knowledge and skills they gained throughout Module 2 in Shared Reading and ELA to complete the Module 2 culminating task, The Best of Syd Hoff. The task builds on opinion writing lessons in Module 2 and the Syd Hoff books students read during Shared Reading. Students choose their favorite Syd Hoff book and persuade someone that it is his best by including information from the story. The task requires text comprehension, opinion writing, and use of planning and revising strategies.

There are many opportunities to assess writing skills in this unit, but we do not recommend that teachers use them all. Each writing task has a genre-based Rubric and an Grade 1: Editing and Revision Rubric suggested. We recommend that teachers decide together which of these pieces to assess, and use others for providing formative feedback. We recommend that all teachers use the Grade 1: Best of Syd Hoff Rubric in this Module to document student progress in content knowledge, literacy knowledge, and integration of knowledge and ideas.

Bookworms English Language Arts is full of opportunities for students to learn and use language. To keep track of their progress, we have designed a Speaking and Listening Rubric with two versions: one to focus on a specific standard for all students (Grade 1: Speaking and Listening (Group) Rubric) and another to focus on a specific student for all standards (Grade 1: Speaking and Listening (Individual) Rubric). Whichever you choose, we recommend that you document growth once per month during this module.

Module 3 Overview

Module 3 includes four units: Telling Our Stories, United States Symbols, Telling Stories, and Wonderful You! Unit 1: Telling Our Stories will explore realistic fiction texts and the narrative writing genre. During Interactive Read Alouds, students will learn the elements of realistic fiction, focusing on identifying the sequence of key events. Students will write personal narratives that contain a logical sequence of events during writing lessons.

Unit 2: United States Symbols will examine nonfiction texts and domain-specific vocabulary about United States history. During Interactive Read Alouds, students will discuss the historical significance of symbols of the United States and encounter domain-specific language typically found in social studies texts. Students will also learn about the structure and text features of nonfiction texts.

Unit 3: Telling Stories builds on what students learned about narrative elements and the fantasy genre from the Shared Reading Telling Stories unit. During Interactive Read Alouds, students will identify and compare the fantasy genre elements in each book. Students will use examples from unit texts to compose a writing piece about a family adventure and write a book review.

Unit 4: Wonderful You! will explore how story characters cope with problems and overcome obstacles. Students will compare and contrast how characters learn and grow throughout the unit. The unit ends with the Wonderful Me! culminating task in which students write about how they have learned and grown since the beginning of the year.

Writing instruction will allow students to demonstrate and solidify their knowledge by identifying and evaluating narrative writing elements. Students will collaboratively engage in each stage of the writing process by planning, drafting, revising, and editing together. They will also write in the opinion genre to further evaluate unit texts via a book review.

The Wonderful Me! culminating task will ask students to combine the knowledge and skills they gained from Shared Reading and ELA by writing about how they have changed and grown as readers and writers over the year. The task will build on genre knowledge acquired from analyzing event sequences in narrative texts and writing narratives in Module 3.

There are many opportunities to assess writing skills in this unit, but we do not recommend that teachers use them all. Each writing task has a genre-based Rubric and an Grade 1: Editing and Revision Rubric suggested. We recommend that teachers decide together which of these pieces to assess, and use others for providing formative feedback. We recommend that all teachers use the Grade 1: Wonderful Me! Rubric in this Module to document student progress in content knowledge, literacy knowledge, and integration of knowledge and ideas.

Bookworms English Language Arts is full of opportunities for students to learn and use language. To keep track of their progress, we have designed a Speaking and Listening Rubric with two versions: one to focus on a specific standard for all students (Grade 1: Speaking and Listening (Group) Rubric) and another to focus on a specific student for all standards (Grade 1: Speaking and Listening (Individual) Rubric). Whichever you choose, we recommend that you document growth once per month during this module.

Trimester 3

Module 4 Overview

Module 4 will include two units: Exploring Our World and Summing It Up. Unit 1: Exploring Our World includes books and writing lessons that explore the world around us. Students will gather information from narrative and informational texts presenting facts about the natural world. They will write informative pieces based on research from unit books and information collected from observations. In addition, students will compose an opinion piece to examine how authors present information about the world in narrative and informational texts.

Unit 2: Summing It Up will ask students to demonstrate the reading and writing skills they have learned throughout the year. Students will choose Shared Reading and ELA texts as inspiration for their writing pieces, verifying their comprehension by expressing their ideas about the content. Students will have the opportunity to demonstrate their writing skills in all three writing genres: narrative, informative, and opinion. The unit will allow students to showcase their end-of-the-school-year literacy achievement in reading and writing.

The Book of The Year culminating task will help students to choose their favorite book from Shared Reading or ELA and create a commercial to convince someone why it should be the Book of the Year. Students will demonstrate their knowledge by choosing reasons that include text evidence to persuade their readers that their favorite book should be the Book of the Year. Students have constructed book reviews and other opinion pieces that have prepared them for this task since the beginning of the year. They will apply their knowledge of the writing opinion genre and the writing process to complete this final culminating task, summing up their first-grade year!

There are many opportunities to assess writing skills in this unit, but we do not recommend that teachers use them all. Each writing task has a genre-based Rubric and an Grade 1: Editing and Revision Rubric suggested. We recommend that teachers decide together which of these pieces to assess, and use others for providing formative feedback. We recommend that all teachers use the Grade 1: Book of the Year Rubric in this Module to document student progress in content knowledge, literacy knowledge, and integration of knowledge and ideas.

Bookworms English Language Arts is full of opportunities for students to learn and use language. To keep track of their progress, we have designed a Speaking and Listening Rubric with two versions: one to focus on a specific standard for all students (Grade 1: Speaking and Listening (Group) Rubric) and another to focus on a specific student for all standards (Grade 1: Speaking and Listening (Individual) Rubric). Whichever you choose, we recommend that you document growth once per month during this module.

Second Grade Shared Reading Modules

Trimester 1

Module 1 Overview

In Unit 1: New Beginnings, students will read about the different ways people might react to something new. These two texts work together to introduce fiction text structure and demonstrate the idea that the same theme can be expressed across multiple texts.

In Unit 2: Friendship, students will read about the different paths that friendships might take, whether they are brand new or well established. These two texts work together to reinforce fiction text structure knowledge and demonstrate the idea that the same theme can be expressed across multiple texts.

In Unit 3: Life Cycles, students will read nonfiction texts about the different ways living things grow and change on their journey from egg to adult. These lessons work together to introduce multiple informative text structures and help students learn why it is beneficial to read more than one book on the same topic. They also demonstrate the idea that the same scientific theme can be expressed across multiple texts with different topics.

Students will demonstrate and solidify their knowledge through completing written response tasks and participating in oral discussions as a whole class and with partners. Completing daily written response tasks and collaboratively-built text structure anchor charts enables students to demonstrate their understanding in writing, showing what they have learned through: describing characters, settings, and events; taking the perspective of characters; comparing and contrasting characters using character traits; summarizing what they have read in each text; and providing relevant reasons and evidence to support their statements or opinions.

Students will combine the knowledge and skills they have gained throughout Module 1 of both Shared Reading and ELA to complete a Culminating Task for Module 1: Frogs Research Report. In this Culminating Task, students will plan and write a collaborative research report about the life cycle of a frog. To successfully complete this task, students must apply what they have learned so far during Shared Reading about how to make meaning from texts and from English Language Arts about how to share their thoughts and understandings in writing.

Trimester 2

Module 2 Overview

In Unit 1: Native Americans, students will learn about the structure and organization of nonfiction texts, and about the history, culture, and modern lives of four different Native American tribes in the United States. In all four books in this unit, students will learn the structure and purpose for the table of contents in nonfiction texts, and the ways that other nonfiction text features support text content understanding: maps, labeled diagrams, images and captions, and glossaries. The lessons in this unit work together to help students understand why it is beneficial to consult multiple information sources on subtopics related to a larger overall topic.

In Unit 2: Actions and Consequences, students will reinforce their regular narrative text structure knowledge, learn about narrative mystery text structure and elements, and practice using narrative story elements to accurately retell a story. They will apply what they’ve learned by actively participating in oral whole group and partner discussion and completing daily written responses about each book. The lessons in this unit work together to reinforce students’ understanding of multiple narrative mystery text structures, and help students understand why it is beneficial to compare texts with similar structures in order to more deeply understand each text.

Students will demonstrate and solidify their knowledge through completing written response tasks and participating in oral discussions as a whole class and with partners. Completing daily written response tasks and collaboratively-built text structure anchor charts enables students to demonstrate their understanding in writing, showing what they have learned through: describing characters, settings, and objects in great detail, identifying and analyzing narrative mystery text elements, identifying and using various nonfiction elements to better understand informational topics, comparing and contrasting the historical and modern lives of four different Native American tribes, using narrative text elements to retell the story, summarizing what they have read in each text, and providing relevant reasons and evidence to support their statements or opinions.

Students will combine the knowledge and skills they have gained during Module 2 Shared Reading and throughout ELA informative writing units and lessons to complete a Culminating Task for Module 2: Native Americans Research Report. In this Culminating Task, students will plan and write a research report about one of the Native American tribes from their Shared Reading texts: the Cherokee people, the Hopi people, or the Mohawk people. To successfully complete this task, students must apply what they have learned during Shared Reading about how to make meaning from texts and from English Language Arts about how to share their thoughts and understandings in writing.

Module 3 Overview

In Unit 1: Making a Difference in Our World, students will use narrative structure to support comprehension, analyze character actions and dialogue, and support their opinions about character actions and decisions with text evidence. The lessons in this unit work together to reinforce students’ narrative text structure knowledge.

In Unit 2: Changing the Game, students will learn about biography content and purpose, reinforce their nonfiction text structure and organization knowledge, and explore the impact of racism and prejudice in United States history. The lessons in this unit work together to reinforce students’ biographical text structure knowledge.

In Unit 3: Mysterious Mummies, students will reinforce their knowledge about narrative mystery text structure and organization, and nonfiction text structure. They will also learn about the ancient Egyptian mummification process, and about ways museums could plan, build, and publicize ancient historical artifact exhibits. The lessons in this unit work together to make connections between fiction and nonfiction texts on similar topics, and to demonstrate the idea that the same historical topic of study can be expressed across multiple texts.

Students will demonstrate and solidify their knowledge through completing written response tasks and participating in oral discussions as a whole class and with partners. Completing daily written response tasks and collaboratively-built text structure anchor charts enables students to demonstrate their understanding in writing, showing what they have learned through: using topic-subtopic text structure to support their understanding of nonfiction text, using narrative text structure and author’s craft to identify clues and evidence useful for determining the solution to a mystery, summarizing what they have read in nonfiction chapters, and providing relevant reasons and evidence to support their statements or opinions.

Students will combine the knowledge and skills they have gained during Module 3 Read Aloud texts and opinion genre writing units in Modules 1–3 to complete a Culminating task for Module 3: Opinion Writing: Making Good Choices. In this Culminating Task, students will plan and write an opinion piece stating and supporting their opinion on whether it is easy or difficult to make the choice to do what is right. To successfully complete this task, students must apply what they have learned so far during Shared Reading about how to make meaning from texts and from English Language Arts about how to share their thoughts, understandings, and opinions in writing.

Trimester 3

Module 4 Overview

In Unit 1: Books and Culture, students will learn about China’s history and culture, use text features to gain meaning from nonfiction text, and reinforce their narrative text knowledge. In Unit 2: Myths and Culture, students will learn about ancient Greece’s history and culture, Greek mythology, and the modern Olympics, use text features to gain meaning from nonfiction text, and reinforce their narrative text knowledge.

For both Unit 1 and Unit 2, the lessons in each unit work together to help students understand how both fiction and nonfiction texts can work together to help them learn more about a topic, and help students understand why it is beneficial to know how different nonfiction text features work together with the main text to provide additional details about a topic.

Students will demonstrate and solidify their knowledge through completing written response tasks and participating in oral discussions as a whole class and with partners. Completing daily written response tasks and collaboratively-built text structure anchor charts enables students to demonstrate their understanding in writing, showing what they have learned through: identifying and discussing narrative text structure elements, using nonfiction text features to gain additional information from the text, comparing and contrasting content related to the history, culture, and mythology/legend of two different cultures, comparing and contrasting the cultural practices of ancient vs modern times within a culture, and providing relevant reasons and evidence to support their statements or opinions.

Students will combine the knowledge and skills they have gained throughout the year in both Shared Reading and ELA to complete two culminating tasks for Module 4:

• To successfully complete the tasks in Opinion Writing: Book Advertisement, students will apply what they have learned about opinion text structure and writing techniques to independently plan, design, revise, and edit a book advertisement on the book that was their favorite of all the curriculum texts they have read or listened to in second grade.
• To successfully complete the tasks in Narrative Writing: Reading and Writing Identity, students will apply what they have learned about narrative text structure and elements, reflective thinking, and self-analysis to independently plan, draft, revise, and edit a memoir sharing their growth as a reader and writer throughout second grade.

Successfully completing each of these culminating tasks allows students to demonstrate how well they have learned both the content knowledge and literacy skills they have gained throughout their second grade year.

Second Grade ELA Modules

Trimester 1

Module 1 Overview

In this module, students will progress through three ELA units. In Unit 1: Telling Our Stories, students will learn how to tell their own stories in writing and will continue to explore narrative structure in the writing of others. They will also use opinion writing structure to tell their opinion about a book. The lessons in this unit work together to reinforce fiction text structure understanding through producing new text and analyzing existing text.

In Unit 2: Ways Our World Works, students will dip into the world of invisible forces and waves by studying magnetism and sound. They will learn that scientists devise methods to study and represent force and motion. The lessons in this unit work together to reinforce students’ understanding of multiple informative text structures, helping students understand the benefit of consulting multiple sources to inform their understanding of a topic.

In Unit 3: Animals in the Wild, students will learn how animals and insects keep themselves safe, and how to write an informative text about an animal in the wild. The lessons in this unit work together to reinforce students’ understanding of multiple informative text structures, and help students learn why it is beneficial to read more than one book on the same topic.

Students will demonstrate and solidify their knowledge through completing narrative, opinion, and informative genre writing tasks and participating in oral discussions as a whole class and with partners. Collaboratively written daily written response tasks and collaboratively built text structure anchor charts enable students to demonstrate their understanding in writing, showing what they have learned through describing narrative and informative text structures and content, analyzing text content, summarizing the text, and providing relevant reasons and evidence to support their statements or opinions. By evaluating narrative and informative genre writing examples, students learn the necessary genre components, how to differentiate one genre from another, and how to differentiate between well-written texts and texts which need improvement. Moving through the writing process of determining a topic, planning, drafting, revising, and editing, and applying what they have learned about genre-specific writing elements throughout that process, enables students to successfully produce a well-written genre-specific text that demonstrates their topic or concept understanding.

Students will combine the knowledge and skills they have gained throughout Module 1 of both Shared Reading and ELA to complete a Culminating Task for Module 1: Frogs Research Report. In this Culminating Task, students will plan and write a collaborative research report about the life cycle of a frog. To successfully complete this task, students must apply what they have learned so far during Shared Reading about how to make meaning from texts and from English Language Arts about how to share their thoughts and understandings in writing.

There are many opportunities to assess writing skills in this unit, but we do not recommend that teachers use them all. Each writing task has a genre-based Rubric and an Grade 2: Editing and Revision Rubric suggested. We recommend that teachers decide together which of these pieces to assess, and use others for providing formative feedback. We recommend that all teachers use the Grade 2: Frogs Research Report Rubric in this Module to document student progress in content knowledge, literacy knowledge, and integration of knowledge and ideas.

Bookworms English Language Arts is full of opportunities for students to learn and use language. To keep track of their progress, we have designed a Speaking and Listening Rubric with two versions: one to focus on a specific standard for all students (Grade 2: Speaking and Listening (Group) Rubric) and another to focus on a specific student for all standards (Grade 2: Speaking and Listening (Individual) Rubric). Whichever you choose, we recommend that you document growth once per month during this module.

Trimester 2

Module 2 Overview

In this module, students will progress through four ELA units. In Unit 1: Weather, students will reinforce their narrative and fiction content and text structure knowledge, and apply what they’ve learned by writing a fantasy narrative weather report. The lessons in this unit work together to reinforce nonfiction text structure knowledge through analyzing existing text, and narrative text structure knowledge through analyzing multiple narrative text structures and producing new text.

In Unit 2: Native American Legends, students will learn about the structure and content of several Native American legends, demonstrate their understanding through oral discussion and engaging in co-constructed written responses. They will apply what they have learned about nonfiction text structure and content from Shared Reading texts by writing a research report on one of the Native American tribes they read about. The lessons in this unit work together to reinforce students’ understanding of legend and folktale narrative text structures, and—through connections to Module 2 Shared Reading texts—nonfiction text structures, and help students understand why it is beneficial to consult multiple texts on similar topics and with similar text structures to learn more about their topic of choice.

In Unit 3: Our Money, Our Choices: Earning, Saving, Spending, students will strengthen their narrative and informative text structure knowledge, learn about the connections between goods and services and producers and consumers, and apply what they’ve learned about informative text structure and content by writing an informative earning/saving/spending plan. The lessons in this unit work together to reinforce students’ understanding of narrative and informative text structures and how they can use books of different genres to learn more about a topic.

In Unit 4: My Story, Your Story, students will strengthen their narrative text structure and writing techniques knowledge, reinforce their opinion writing structure knowledge, and apply what they’ve learned by writing both a personal narrative piece and a book review. The lessons in this unit work together to strengthen students’ narrative writing elements and text structure knowledge, and opinion writing element knowledge. The lessons also support students in using what they have learned about narrative text structure from existing texts when planning and writing their own narrative piece.

Students will demonstrate and solidify their knowledge through completing narrative, opinion, and informative genre writing tasks and participating in oral discussions as a whole class and with partners. Collaboratively written daily written response tasks and collaboratively built text structure anchor charts enable students to demonstrate their understanding in writing, showing what they have learned through describing nonfiction text structures and content, taking the perspective of the subjects of the nonfiction texts, analyzing text content, summarizing the text, and providing relevant reasons and evidence to support their statements or opinions. By evaluating informative genre writing examples, students learn the necessary components of the genre, how to differentiate one genre from another, and how to differentiate between well-written texts and texts which need improvement. Moving through the writing process of determining a topic, planning, drafting, revising, and editing, and applying what they have learned about genre-specific elements of writing throughout that process, enables students to successfully produce a well-written genre-specific text that demonstrates their understanding of a topic or concept.

Students will combine the knowledge and skills they have gained during Module 2 Shared Reading and throughout ELA informative writing units and lessons to complete a Culminating Task for Module 2: Native Americans Research Report. In this Culminating Task, students will plan and write a research report about one of the Native American tribes they have read about in Shared Reading: the Cherokee people, the Hopi people, or the Mohawk people. To successfully complete this task, students must apply what they have learned so far during Shared Reading about how to make meaning from texts and from English Language Arts about how to share their thoughts and understandings in writing.

There are many opportunities to assess writing skills in this unit, but we do not recommend that teachers use them all. Each writing task has a genre-based Grade 2: Editing and Revision Rubric suggested. We recommend that teachers decide together which of these pieces to assess, and use others for providing formative feedback. We recommend that all teachers use the Grade 2: Native Americans Research Report Rubric in this Module to document student progress in content knowledge, literacy knowledge, and integration of knowledge and ideas.

Bookworms English Language Arts is full of opportunities for students to learn and use language. To keep track of their progress, we have designed a Speaking and Listening Rubric with two versions: one to focus on a specific standard for all students (Grade 2: Speaking and Listening (Group) Rubric) and another to focus on a specific student for all standards (Grade 2: Speaking and Listening (Individual) Rubric). Whichever you choose, we recommend that you document growth once per month during this module.

Module 3 Overview

In this module, students will progress through four ELA units. In Unit 1: Breaking Barriers, students will learn about United States historical figures and their accomplishments, reinforce their nonfiction text structure and content and narrative text structure knowledge, and apply what they’ve learned by writing an opinion piece about one of the people from the texts in this unit, telling which person they would like to meet and why. The lessons in this unit work together to strengthen students’ fiction and nonfiction text structure knowledge, and to demonstrate the idea that biographical books can have a variety of text structures and ways of sharing factual information about people from history.

In Unit 2: My Story, My Feelings, students will reinforce their narrative writing structure, writing techniques, and content knowledge; and apply what they’ve learned by independently planning and writing a personal narrative piece telling a story about a time when they felt a particular way. The lessons in this unit work together to strengthen student narrative writing structure and content knowledge, and help students understand how to analyze and apply author’s craft writing techniques that produce strong, vivid, and interesting writing.

In Unit 3: Making History, students will students will learn about nonfiction text structure written in narrative format, explore how three different people from United States history responded to prejudicial treatment and how they chose to do what was right, and apply what they’ve learned by completing an opinion writing piece telling whether they think it is an easy or difficult decision to make the choice to do what is right. The lessons in this unit work together to strengthen students’ nonfiction text structure and content knowledge, and to demonstrate the idea that biographical books can have a narrative structure and still share factual information about people from history. They also help students understand why it is beneficial to consult multiple texts on similar topics, in order to more fully understand that topic.

In Unit 4: Making a Difference in Your World, students will reinforce their narrative text structure knowledge, explore character development through analyzing character behavior and thinking, and put themselves in characters’ situations as a way to more deeply understand how the character must be feeling or why they behave as they do. The lessons in this unit work together to reinforce students’ narrative text structure knowledge. They also help students think more deeply about what motivates characters’ actions, and to examine a characters’ growth and change across time.

Students will demonstrate and solidify their knowledge through completing opinion genre writing tasks and participating in oral discussions as a whole class and with partners. Collaboratively written daily written response tasks and collaboratively built text structure anchor charts enable students to demonstrate their understanding in writing, showing what they have learned through writing suggestion messages to the historical figures they read about for what they might do when faced with unfair, unkind, or prejudicial treatment, imagining what two people who have never met might have said to each other based on what they read about them, describing what their own choices might have been if faced with the same situations the people in the book faced, and writing questions they would like to ask the author. Moving through the writing process of determining a topic, planning, drafting, revising, and editing, and applying what they have learned about genre-specific elements of writing throughout that process, enables students to successfully produce a well-written genre-specific text that demonstrates their understanding of a topic or concept.

Students will combine the knowledge and skills they have gained during Module 3 Read Aloud texts and opinion genre writing units in Modules 1–3 to complete a Culminating task for Module 3: Opinion Writing: Making Good Choices. In this Culminating Task, students will plan and write an opinion piece stating and supporting their opinion on whether it is easy or difficult to make the choice to do what is right. To successfully complete this task, students must apply what they have learned so far during Shared Reading about how to make meaning from texts and from English Language Arts about how to share their thoughts, understandings, and opinions in writing.

There are many opportunities to assess writing skills in this unit, but we do not recommend that teachers use them all. Each writing task has a genre-based Rubric and Grade 2: Editing and Revision Rubric suggested. We recommend that teachers decide together which of these pieces to assess, and use others for providing formative feedback. We recommend that all teachers use the Grade 2: Making Good Choices Rubric in this Module to document student progress in content knowledge, literacy knowledge, and integration of knowledge and ideas.

Bookworms English Language Arts is full of opportunities for students to learn and use language. To keep track of their progress, we have designed a Speaking and Listening Rubric with two versions: one to focus on a specific standard for all students (Grade 2: Speaking and Listening (Group) Rubric) and another to focus on a specific student for all standards (Grade 2: Speaking and Listening (Individual) Rubric). Whichever you choose, we recommend that you document growth once per month during this module.

Trimester 3

Module 4 Overview

In this module, students will progress through four ELA units. In Unit 1: For Love of Country, students will learn about United States symbols and their significance and reinforce their nonfiction and fiction text structure knowledge. They will apply what they’ve learned through active participation in oral discussion and collaborative written responses. The lessons in this unit work together to help students understand why it is beneficial to consult multiple books on similar historic/symbolic topics to learn more about that concept or topic.

In Unit 2: A Cinderella Story, students will learn about the structure and content of fairy tale and folktale texts which tell the same overall fictional story but in slightly different versions, and about the structure and organization of compare-contrast informative writing. Then they will apply what they’ve learned by planning, drafting, revising, and editing an informative compare-contrast piece about two different Cinderella stories. The lessons in this unit work together to build and strengthen students’ text analysis and compare-contrast skills, and to demonstrate the idea that the same fictional story can be expressed in different ways across multiple texts originating from different cultures or countries.

In Unit 3: Earth and Space: Moving, Growing, Changing, students will reinforce their knowledge of different forms of nonfiction text structure, learn about influential scientists past and present, and explore how the earth and plant life grow and change in cycles. Then they will apply what they’ve learned through active participation in oral discussion and collaborative written responses. The lessons in this unit work together to strengthen students’ understanding of different nonfiction text structures and demonstrate the idea that a collection of nonfiction texts can be connected to one overall theme even as each book explores a different subcategory within that theme.

In Unit 4: Look How Far I’ve Come!, students will apply what they’ve learned about opinion and narrative writing structure, content, and purpose to express and support their opinion on the qualities that make one book superior to multiple others they have read or listened to, and to thoughtfully reflect on changes in themselves as literacy learners over time. The lessons in this unit work together to reinforce students’ ability to apply opinion and narrative text structure to their own writing, and to use reflective and opinion writing techniques to express and support their thoughts, beliefs, and opinions.

Students will demonstrate and solidify their knowledge through completing opinion and narrative genre writing tasks, co-constructing written response tasks, and participating in oral discussions as a whole class and with partners. Collaboratively written daily written response tasks and collaboratively built text structure anchor charts enable students to demonstrate their understanding in writing, showing what they have learned through providing relevant reasons behind symbolic designs for national symbols such as the American flag, identifying appropriate actions to a given event, listing facts about a topic/event/item, synthesizing information to determine appropriate actions based on content, comparing and contrasting content, describing defining characteristics of a topic or item, diagramming items from text content, and describing sequential processes in writing. Moving through the writing process of determining a topic, planning, drafting, revising, and editing, and applying what they have learned about genre-specific elements of writing throughout that process, enables students to successfully produce a well-written genre-specific text that demonstrates their understanding of a topic or concept.

Students will combine the knowledge and skills they have gained throughout the year in both Shared Reading and ELA to complete two culminating tasks for Module 4:

• To successfully complete the tasks in Opinion Writing: Book Advertisement, students will apply what they have learned about opinion text structure and writing techniques to independently plan, design, revise, and edit a book advertisement on the book that was their favorite of all the curriculum texts they have read or listened to in second grade.
• To successfully complete the tasks in Narrative Writing: Reading and Writing Identity, students will apply what they have learned about narrative text structure and elements, reflective thinking, and self-analysis to independently plan, draft, revise, and edit a memoir sharing their growth as a reader and writer throughout second grade.

Successful completion of each of these culminating tasks allow students to demonstrate how well they have learned both the content knowledge and literacy skills they have gained throughout their second grade year.

There are many opportunities to assess writing skills in this unit, but we do not recommend that teachers use them all. Each writing task has a genre-based Rubric and an Grade 2: Editing and Revision Rubric suggested. We recommend that teachers decide together which of these pieces to assess, and use others for providing formative feedback. We recommend that all teachers use the Grade 2: Reading and Writing Identity Rubric in this Module to document student progress in content knowledge, literacy knowledge, and integration of knowledge and ideas.

Bookworms English Language Arts is full of opportunities for students to learn and use language. To keep track of their progress, we have designed a Speaking and Listening Rubric with two versions: one to focus on a specific standard for all students (Grade 2: Speaking and Listening (Group) Rubric) and another to focus on a specific student for all standards (Grade 2: Speaking and Listening (Individual) Rubric). Whichever you choose, we recommend that you document growth once per month during this module.