Grade 1 English Language Arts
11 units matched to the Manitoba Curriculum. Kids see this subject as “Letters & Words”.
Learning focus
- A1 Oral Language Communication: Learners will apply listening and speaking skills to receive, exchange and develop ideas for various purposes and audiences.
- A2 Language as the Foundation for Reading and Writing: Learners will develop and apply the understanding of the system of language (knowledge and skills) and language comprehension for reading and writing.
- B1 Acquire New Information: Learners will activate, acquire and build background knowledge through inquiry of diverse topics and engagement with multimodal forms of text (e.g., visual, oral, print, digital, experts, Elders).
- B2 Construct Meaning: Learners will understand and apply a variety of comprehension strategies to construct the meaning of text and consolidate new information.
- B3 Think Critically about Multimodal Text and Respond: Learners will recognize, analyze, and respond critically to inequities, bias, and viewpoints in texts and ideas.
- C1 Generate Ideas, Create Plan and Draft/Prototype: Learners will generate ideas, conduct research, evaluate sources, and design a plan to compose multimodal texts (visual, multimedia, oral, written) for a range of purposes and audiences.
- C2 Enhance the Clarity and Artistry of Multimodal Texts: Learners will apply knowledge and understanding of the variables of writing to enhance the clarity, precision and effectiveness of their creations and reflect critically on created text.
- C3 Edit and Publish: Learners will apply knowledge of editing to communicate the text clearly and coherently to an audience, using a variety of media, tools and strategies to publish text.
- D1 Share Ideas and Information: Learners will use a range of multimodal forms of communication (e.g., visual, multimedia, oral and written texts) to share, clarify, and extend ideas/ information for different purposes and audiences.
- D2 Assess and Set Goals: Learners will use metacognition (the ability to think about one’s own thinking) to assess their language skills as listeners, speakers, readers, writers, viewers and representers, supporting their grow as independent learners. Learners will set goals and monitor progress.
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.
Learning outcome: ELA.1.A2.1, ELA.1.A2.3 · blending and segmenting sounds to read and spell 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.
Learning outcome: ELA.1.A2.3, ELA.1.C3.2 · short vowel sounds in reading and spelling
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.
Learning outcome: ELA.1.A2.1, ELA.1.A2.3 · word families and rhyming patterns
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.
Learning outcome: ELA.1.A2.3 · the sounds sh, ch and th
Unit 5
Sight Words
Common words like said, was, they and where that are tricky to sound out. Children practise finding, using and spelling them so they can read them at a glance.
Learning outcome: ELA.1.A2.6, ELA.1.C3.2 · recognizing and spelling 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.
Learning outcome: ELA.1.C3.3, ELA.1.C3.4 · capital letters and periods in sentences
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!
Learning outcome: ELA.1.B2.6 · story elements, and retelling in order
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.
Learning outcome: ELA.1.A2.5, ELA.1.C2.3 · 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.
Learning outcome: ELA.1.A2.4, ELA.1.C3.2 · word endings that make plurals
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.
Learning outcome: ELA.1.C2.2, ELA.1.C3.4 · sentences that tell, ask and exclaim, and the punctuation they need
Unit 11
Think It Through
Reading a short story, finding the main idea and details, and using clues to work out what is not said.
Learning outcome: ELA.1.B2.5, ELA.1.B2.6 · using strategies to check and show understanding of a text
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