Writing 

Our district requires students to complete 3 writing performance tasks; 1 per trimester. A great deal of time will go into preparing each child for these performance tasks. 

The three genres for these tasks are: 

-Informative (read a variety of non-fiction texts to write multi-paragraph essays citing sources)

-Narrative (Using figurative language as well as components of story writing, students will write both personal narratives as well as creative stories)

-Opinion (Students will learn to "take a stand" on a variety of topics and write multi-paragraph essays arguing their point of view utilizing appropriate persuasive vocabulary)

Reading

The Language Arts series, Journeys, by Houghton Mifflin, is aligned with the California Language Arts standards and the Common Core Standards. Reading comprehension, vocabulary development, writing strategies, writing conventions, and literary responses will be incorporated with each story or novel we read.

Accelerated Reader

Each Child has an individual AR Goal to meet each trimester based on reading every night at home for homework and their results from the STAR reading assessment.  Please look for your child's goal and the STAR results in September.

Vocabulary/Spelling

Academic Vocabulary will be taught weekly and incorporated daily in all subjects.

Spelling 

Most weeks the words will be the same for both spelling and vocabulary.  Studying for the Spelling tests, which are on Thursday, will be the student's responsibility.  Please see this website and the page "Spelling Word Study" for ideas.