Grade 6 English Language Arts: how to help at home
What your child learns in Grade 6 english language arts in the Nunavut Curriculum, and simple things to try at home.
The Big Ideas this year
- Uqausiliriniq: communication and language, creative and artistic expression, and reflective and critical thinking.
- Comprehension: listen, view and read to understand a range of texts.
- Production: speak, write and represent ideas clearly for different audiences and purposes.
Easy ways to practise english language arts at home
- Read what they are interested in: graphic novels, sports pages, series. Then talk about it.
- Ask for the main idea and one piece of evidence from the text.
- Have them write real messages: a thank-you note, a short review, a note to a relative.
- Read their writing aloud to them; they often spot their own mistakes by ear.
What each unit covers
Learning to Learn
Practises using prior knowledge, asking open-ended questions, making connections, adjusting reading rate, and choosing and tracking learning goals.
Close Reading
Reading original stories and information texts, then finding the theme or main idea, making inferences, explaining why characters act as they do and choosing the sentence that best supports an answer.
Text Features & Forms
Practises text features such as the table of contents, index, glossary, captions and diagrams, the names of common text forms, and subject-specific vocabulary.
Point of View
Telling first person, third person limited and third person omniscient apart, and thinking about what each narrator can and can't know.
Figurative Language
Naming similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, alliteration and idioms, explaining what they mean, finding the sense an image appeals to and working out what a symbol stands for.
Connotation & Tone
Words can share a dictionary meaning (denotation) but carry different feelings (connotation), like “cozy” and “cramped.” Students choose words for effect and identify a writer's tone.
Roots & Analogies
Using Greek and Latin roots (like “geo,” “aud” and “port”) to work out unfamiliar words, and completing analogies that compare word relationships.
Media, Bias & Diversity
Practises how multimodal texts combine modes, how audience and purpose shape a text, and how to notice bias, stereotypes, inclusion and equity in texts.
Sources & Bias
Separating fact from opinion, judging whether a source is reliable, spotting loaded words and one-sided reporting, and asking who made a message and why.
Plan & Organize Writing
Practises choosing a focused topic for an audience, planning with organizers, using organization patterns such as cause and effect, and building introductions, paragraphs and conclusions.
Make Your Case
Building an argument: stating a claim, choosing the strongest evidence, recognizing counterarguments and rebuttals, spotting persuasive techniques and ordering a persuasive paragraph.
Agreement
Making verbs agree with their subjects (even with tricky phrases, “each,” “everyone” and “either…or”) and choosing pronouns that clearly match the nouns they replace.
Commas & Clauses
Finding dependent clauses, telling simple, compound and complex sentences apart, and using commas in lists, compound sentences, introductions and appositives.
Sentence Repair
Spotting sentence fragments, run-on sentences and comma splices, and choosing correct ways to fix them with periods, semicolons, joining words or dependent clauses.
What the report card levels look like at home
- Beginning
- Just getting started with this idea. Short, regular practice with lots of support helps most.
- Approaching
- Understands parts of it and is building confidence. Keep practising the tricky parts.
- Meeting
- Has it! Mixed review now and then keeps it strong.
- Exceeding
- Applies it confidently, even in new or harder situations. Try challenge mode and real-life problems.
Your child’s teacher decides the level on the report card. Read the Nunavut report card guide.
Common questions
Read what they are interested in: graphic novels, sports pages, series. Then talk about it. Ask for the main idea and one piece of evidence from the text. Keep sessions short, about 10 to 15 minutes, and stop on a success.
The Nunavut Curriculum Grade 6 english language arts units include learning to learn, close reading, text features & forms, point of view, figurative language, connotation & tone.
Free printable Grade 6 english language arts practice sheet
Questions from every unit, with an answer key.