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6th grade English Language Arts: how to help at home

What your child learns in 6th grade English language arts in the Washington State Learning Standards, and simple things to try at home.

Focus areas this year

Easy ways to practice English language arts at home

What each unit covers

  1. 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.

  2. Text Forms & Features

    Recognizing problem-and-solution reports, scripts, and web features like menus, and explaining how pictures and graphics add to a text.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. Roots & Analogies

    Using Greek and Latin roots (like “geo,” “aud” and “port”) to work out unfamiliar words, and completing analogies that compare word relationships.

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. Commas & Clauses

    Finding dependent clauses, telling simple, compound and complex sentences apart, and using commas in lists, compound sentences, introductions and appositives.

  9. Punctuation Power

    Using a colon in a formal greeting or after a speaker's name in a script, and putting a comma after words like However and phrases like For example.

  10. Check the Source

    Children practice judging whether a source is credible and accurate, reading laterally, checking text and images made by technology such as chatbots, narrowing research questions and citing sources.

  11. Media Techniques

    Children name persuasion techniques such as bandwagon, testimonials, fear and scarcity, notice camera angles, music and what is left out, and think about why people react to the same message differently.

  12. Spelling: Endings and Sound-Alikes

    Children practice US spelling: when to double a final consonant, -ance and -ence, -cious and -tious, words that break i before e, and commonly confused words such as their, there and they're.

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 practicing 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 Washington report card guide.

Common questions

Free printable 6th grade English language arts practice sheet

Questions from every unit, with an answer key.

Get the sheetSubscribePractice in Gradelings