Essential Standards Explained

Phonics is a method of teaching students how to read by correlating phoneme and graphemes. Having a strong education in phonics is foundational to a students future. Without phonics, students will struggle to decode and encode words.

Plot elements refer to fictional stories and all the parts that make it whole. Each element is a piece of the puzzle and understanding how these pieces fit together helpes students grasp the entire story. The elements include: Characters, setting, problem, sequence, and solution.

A conclusion or opinion that is reached because of known facts or evidence. Students should use information in the text, illustrations, and their background knowledge to make an inference.

The editing process can be quite overwhelming for students. They often write their first draft and want to be done. It is important to teach students to take the time to ensure they are producing quality work. So, how do we teach this skill? First introduce the skill and model it for students with a mentor text. Teacher should project or create a written piece and model how to edit it. Next, start small by providing a prewritten short piece- either a sentence at a time, or one paragraph- for Students to practice. After they are able to edit a small text, they can begin editing their own writing or practice with peer edits.