1st grade English Language Arts
17 units matched to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). Kids see this subject as “Letters & Words”.
Focus areas
- Foundational language skills: phonics with blends, digraphs, long vowels and vowel teams, and word endings
- Comprehension, response and genres: characters, plot and setting, and the main topic of information texts
- Author's purpose and craft, and composition: complete sentences with capitals, end marks and past and present verbs
- Inquiry and research: asking questions, finding sources and sharing what you learn
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.
TEKS student expectation: 1.2(A) · 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.
TEKS student expectation: 1.2(B); 1.2(C) · reading and spelling words with short vowels
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.
TEKS student expectation: 1.2(B); 1.2(C) · 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.
TEKS student expectation: 1.2(B) · 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.
TEKS student expectation: 1.2(B) · reading common high-frequency words
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.
TEKS student expectation: 1.11(D) · 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!
TEKS student expectation: 1.8(B); 1.8(C); 1.8(D) · the characters, setting and events of 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.
TEKS student expectation: 1.11(D) · 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.
TEKS student expectation: 1.3(C); 1.11(D) · adding -s or -es 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.
TEKS student expectation: 1.11(D) · telling, asking and exclaiming sentences
Unit 11
Word Jobs
Telling past, present and future apart, spotting describing words and action words, and choosing joining words like and, but, or and because.
TEKS student expectation: 1.11(D) · past and present verbs and joining words
Unit 12
Sound Play
Hearing rhymes, sound words (like buzz and splash) and repeated beginning sounds, and noticing how they make texts fun to read.
TEKS student expectation: 1.2(A); 1.9(B) · rhymes, alliteration and sound words
Unit 13
Think It Through
Reading a short story, finding the main idea and details, and using clues to work out what is not said.
TEKS student expectation: 1.6(F); 1.6(G) · making inferences and finding important details
Unit 14
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.
TEKS student expectation: 1.9(F); 1.10(C) · what pictures, words and other media tell us
Unit 15
Story or Facts?
Children practice telling books that tell stories from books that give information, and noticing what pictures add to the words.
TEKS student expectation: 1.9(D); 1.10(C) · telling stories from information books, and what pictures and words each tell
Unit 16
Long Vowels & Vowel Teams
Your child reads and spells words where vowels say their names (cape, rain, boat) and words with r-controlled vowels (star, bird).
TEKS student expectation: 1.2(B); 1.2(C) · long vowels with silent e, vowel teams and r-controlled vowels
Unit 17
Word Endings & Short Forms
Your child puts words together (rainbow), reads contractions (can't, I'm) and works out what -s, -ed and -ing add to a word.
TEKS student expectation: 1.2(B); 1.3(C) · compound words, contractions, and the endings -s, -es, -ed and -ing
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