Grade 8 English Language Arts: how to help at home
What your child learns in Grade 8 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
Research & Inquiry
Children practise asking open questions, using what they already know, judging whether sources are reliable or biased, and noting evidence from more than one source.
Reading Detective
Making and checking predictions, choosing a strategy when reading gets tricky, drawing local and global inferences from clues, and summarizing the main ideas of complex texts.
Close Reading
Reading original short passages and answering questions about theme, tone, word choice, inference and the author's purpose, using evidence from the text.
Whose Story Is It?
Recognizing third-person limited and omniscient narrators, spotting clues that a narrator is unreliable, and thinking about how a story would change from another character's point of view.
Literary Devices
Naming devices like simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, irony, foreshadowing and symbolism in short excerpts, and identifying a narrator's point of view.
Forms, Patterns & Visuals
Comparing text forms such as editorials, news articles, poems and graphic novels, spotting text patterns like problem-solution and compare-contrast, and judging how features, images and design add to meaning.
Fair & Inclusive Language
Children learn how word choice can include or leave people out, notice stereotypes and one-sided views in texts, and explain their reaction using evidence.
Word Study
Using prefixes, suffixes and Greek and Latin roots to work out unfamiliar words, reading context clues, and noticing how word choice changes feeling.
Precise Words & Spelling
Children use word families, prefixes, suffixes and spelling rules, choose precise words for a subject, and use word-processing tools to format a document.
Grammar & Style
Active and passive voice, run-ons, parallel structure, commas, apostrophes, semicolons, colons and common usage choices.
Plan, Form & Voice
Children choose a text form for a purpose and audience, group ideas with patterns such as cause and effect, and match tone and voice to what they are writing.
Write It Better
Choosing the right form and tone for an audience, using reliable sources and giving credit, building voice, acknowledging other perspectives, and revising, editing and proofreading drafts.
Goals & Feedback
Children practise setting specific learning goals, using feedback, tracking evidence of growth and thinking about reading fluency.
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 8 english language arts units include research & inquiry, reading detective, close reading, whose story is it?, literary devices, forms, patterns & visuals.
Free printable Grade 8 english language arts practice sheet
Questions from every unit, with an answer key.