1st Grade Overview for Parents

 

 

The First Grade English Language Arts curriculum is divided into 3 components; Listening and Learning Strand, Skills Strand, and Guided Reading.  

 

The Listening and Learning Strand is designed to help students build the background knowledge and vocabulary critical to listening and reading comprehension.

 

To achieve reading comprehension, a student needs to be able to decode the words on the page and then make sense of those words. The first task is made possible by decoding skills and the second by language comprehension ability.

 

The Skills Strand is designed to help students build decoding skills.  Lessons provide instruction and guided practice on: phonemic awareness, phonics, grammar, vocabulary, and fluently reading and comprehending grade level decodable text.

Guided Reading is an instructional approach designed to help students build reading fluency and comprehension skills. The teacher works with small groups of students with similar needs and reading levels. While reading, the students use a variety of problem-solving strategies to figure out words they don’t know and understand concepts or ideas. Guided reading gives students the chance to apply the strategies while the teacher provides support, but the ultimate goal is independent reading.