First Grade Reading
Course Description
Reading is a meaning-making process that requires the synthesis of skills to effectively communicate. Students are immersed in daily opportunities to explore, inquire, practice and apply reading strategies and skills in a variety of genres to advance toward grade level reading in addition to becoming self-motivated readers. They will learn how to effectively use before, during, and after reading strategies, build vocabulary, improve fluency, and select their own independent reading texts in order to become more informed citizens. Students will independently use their learning to grapple with increasingly complex texts from a variety of genres and time periods to gain a reservoir of literary and cultural knowledge.
The start of first grade is a time for dusting off the skills and habits that children learned during kindergarten. The first unit, Building Good Reading Habits, reinforces children’s learning from kindergarten and establishes ability-based partnerships that tap into the social power of peers working together to help each other become more strategic as readers. The second unit, Learning About the World: Reading Nonfiction, taps into children’s natural curiosity as they explore nonfiction, supporting the teaching of comprehension strategies, word solving, vocabulary, fluency, and author’s craft. The third unit, Readers Have Big Jobs to Do: Fluency, Phonics, and Comprehension, focuses on the reading process to set children up to read increasingly complex texts. The last unit of first grade, Meeting Characters and Learning Lessons: A Study of Story Elements, spotlights story elements and the skills that are foundational to comprehension, including empathy, imagination, character study, and interpretation.
Grade Level(s): 1st Grade
Related Priority Standards (State &/or National): K-5 Missouri Learning Standards & ELA Priority Standards
Essential Questions
- How do I know when I am stuck?
- How do I figure out why I am stuck?
- How do I purposefully apply effective strategies to help comprehend?
- How do I motivate myself to read complex text?
- Why am I reading? For what purpose?
- How has my thinking changed?
- How can I transfer the strategies to real life experiences?
Enduring Understandings/Big Ideas
Students will understand that:
- Reading is a meaning-making process that requires application of self-monitoring strategies to deepen the level of comprehension.
- Self-directed reading leads to character and knowledge development.
- Reading helps a reader extend and deepen their knowledge.
- Reading develops critical thinking skills to evaluate reasoning.
- Reading provides insights into the human condition.
Course-Level Scope & Sequence (Units &/or Skills)
- Unit 1: Building Good Reading Habits
- Unit 2: Learning About the World - Reading Nonfiction
- Unit 3: Readers Have Big Jobs to Do
- Unit 4: Meeting Characters and Learning Lessons
* The above adjustments to scope and sequence are pending Board approval on August 22, 2022.
Course Resources & Materials
- Units of Study for Teaching Reading: A Workshop Curriculum
- Sonday System Essentials
- Heggerty Phonemic Awareness
Date Last Revised/Approved: 2014