1st grade English Language Arts
19 units matched to the New York State Learning Standards. Kids see this subject as “Letters & Words”.
Focus areas
- Reading foundations: blending sounds, short vowels, word families and digraphs
- Reading: characters, settings, main topics and kinds of books
- Writing: complete sentences with capitals and end marks
- Language: describing words, plurals and kinds of sentences
Units
Unit 1
Blend It
Blending sounds into words (s-u-n makes sun), counting the sounds in a word and hearing the last sound. These listening skills are the base of reading and spelling.
Learning standard: 1RF2 · blending and counting the sounds in words
Unit 2
Short Vowels
Hearing the short vowel in the middle of words like cat, bed, pig, dog and sun, and filling in the missing vowel to spell the word.
Learning standard: 1RF3 · decoding words with short vowel sounds
Unit 3
Word Families
Words that share an ending, like cat, hat and bat. Once children know one word in a family, they can read and spell many more by changing the first sound.
Learning standard: 1RF3 · reading words in common word families
Unit 4
Sh, Ch, Th
Letter pairs that make one sound (sh, ch, th) at the start and end of words like ship, cheese and tooth.
Learning standard: 1RF3 · reading words with the digraphs sh, ch and th
Unit 5
Sight Words
Common words like said, was, they and where that are tricky to sound out. Children practice finding, using and spelling them so they can read them at a glance.
Learning standard: 1RF3 · reading common high-frequency words by sight
Unit 6
Sentences
Starting sentences and names with a capital letter, ending with a period or question mark, telling whole sentences from parts, counting words and finding naming words.
Learning standard: 1L1; 1L2 · writing complete sentences with capitals and end marks
Unit 7
Story Time
Reading short stories, then naming who is in them and where they happen, and putting the events in order. Reading the story aloud together and talking about it helps a lot!
Learning standard: 1R3 · describing the characters, setting and events in a story
Unit 8
Describing Words
Opposites (hot and cold) and describing words that tell how something looks, feels, tastes or sounds, including finding the describing word in a sentence.
Learning standard: 1L5 · describing words and opposites
Unit 9
More Than One
Plurals: adding -s to a naming word means more than one (one cat, two cats). Stretch questions add -es to words like box and fox.
Learning standard: 1L1 · adding -s to name more than one
Unit 10
Kinds of Sentences
Knowing a telling sentence from a question, a command and an exclamation, choosing the end mark, and seeing sentences with two ideas joined.
Learning standard: 1L1; 1L2 · telling, asking and exclaiming sentences
Unit 11
Think It Through
Reading a short story, finding the main idea and details, and using clues to work out what is not said.
Learning standard: 1R1; 1R2 · finding the main topic and using details in a text
Unit 12
Messages All Around
Children look at everyday messages, like signs, ads, cards and videos, and practice asking who made them, why, and how they make us feel. This is the media literacy part of the standards.
Learning standard: 1SL2; 1R6 · asking and answering questions about everyday messages in pictures, words and other media
Unit 13
Story or Facts?
Children practice telling books that tell stories from books that give information, and noticing what pictures add to the words.
Learning standard: 1R5; 1R6 · telling stories from information books and what pictures and words each tell
Unit 14
Reading Smart
Practices thinking before and while reading: using what you already know, predicting what happens next, making connections to your own life, using headings and pictures, telling kinds of texts apart and learning topic words.
Learning standard: 1R7; 1R9 · predicting from covers and pictures, making connections and telling kinds of texts apart
Unit 15
True, Pretend and Opinions
Practices telling what could be true from what is make-believe, noticing that people see the same thing differently, seeing people like us in books, and giving an opinion with a reason.
Learning standard: 1W1 · telling real from make-believe, and giving an opinion with a reason
Unit 16
Plan and Write
Practices planning writing by drawing and talking, putting ideas in order, grouping ideas that belong together, showing feelings in writing, improving after feedback, and knowing different kinds of writing.
Learning standard: 1W2; 1W3 · planning writing, putting events in order and adding details
Unit 17
Feelings, Senses and Reasons
Your child finds words that show feelings and the five senses, picks the detail an author gives to support an idea, and chooses joining words such as and, but, so, or and because.
Learning standard: 1R4; 1R8; 1L6 · words for feelings and senses, the details that support an idea, and joining words such as because
Unit 18
Word Clues
Your child works out the meaning of words with more than one meaning from the sentence, finds the base word in words like jumping and looked, and notices what makes a sentence: a capital first word and an end mark.
Learning standard: 1L4; 1RF1 · multiple-meaning words, word endings and base words, and the parts of a sentence
Unit 19
Respond and Find Out
Your child chooses ways to respond to a story or poem (a drawing, a play, a new ending), asks questions, picks a source to answer them and thinks of ways to remember and share what they learn.
Learning standard: 1W4; 1W6; 1W7 · responding to texts, asking questions and gathering information from sources
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