Here are priority standards that we will focus on this year:

Reading Foundations

• Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
• Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.

Reading Literature

• Ask and answer Who, What, Where, When, Why and How questions.
• Retell stories (including fables and folktales).
• Determine the central message, lesson, or moral of stories, fables, and folktales.
• Describe characters (character traits).
• Describe how characters respond to events and challenges.

Reading Information

• Ask and answer Who, What, Where, When, Why and How questions. 
• Identify the main idea of a multi-paragraph text.
• Identify the focus of paragraphs in a text.
• Tell how ideas are connected.

Reading includes three parts: decoding (saying the words), fluency (smooth, expressive reading), and comprehension.

Decoding strategies include:

• Getting your mouth ready
• Looking for chunks you know (ex. "at")
• Looking for picture clues
• Think about the story.  What word would be make sense?
• Does it look right?
• Does it sound right?
• Does it make sense?

Comprehension strategies include:

• Schema and making connections
• Visualizing/sensory images
• Questioning/wondering
• Inferring
• Determining importance
• Synthesizing

Priority standards that we will focus on this year in writing include:

* Write opinion pieces that include:  stating an opinion, giving reasons and examples to support your opinion, including linking words (such as and, also, because, ...).

 * Write informational pieces that include: introducing the topic, telling facts and definitions, words that tell order (first, next, then, after that, finally, ...) and a wrap-up (ending).

 * Write narrative pieces that recount an event (or series of events) and include: details that describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, words to signal order (first, next, then, after than, later, finally, ...), and a wrap-up sentence that provides a sense of closure.