First Grade - ELA
1: Environment
Unit 1: Habitats and Homes
Lesson 4
Animals Live and Grow
Students read Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt aloud and answer explicit comprehension questions about the text. Question #4 asks, "What is 'Nana's rain'?" and the provided answer explains the phrase using textual context (the garden hose Nana is spraying). Other questions (e.g., identifying the season from descriptions) require students to use sentence- and page-level clues to infer meaning.
Unit 2: Weather
Lesson 8
Summer
In Activity 2 (A Summer Story, Options 1 and 2) students are given a list/box of words (beach, hot, trip, swim, pool) and asked to decide which word fits each blank in sentences about Jessie's summer, using the sentence context to make selections. The student pages prompt students to read the passage aloud and choose or write the word/initial that best completes each sentence. Activity 3 asks students to place season names under temperature points and complete four sentences (e.g., "_____ is the warmest season."), requiring them to use sentence meaning to select the correct season word.
Unit 3: Community
Lesson 1
On the Town
In Activity 2 (both Option 1 and Option 2) students read sentences with a blank and then select or write a community vocabulary word or picture that best completes the sentence, using the sentence as the clue. The directions for Option 2 explicitly have students read the community words at the top and then read each sentence to record the word that completes it. The introduction and activity instructions encourage students to describe and use vocabulary words correctly in a sentence, reinforcing sentence-level use of word meaning.
2: Similarities and Differences
Unit 1: Amazing Attributes
Lesson 1
Describe It
In Activity 1 (Guess What's in the Bag) students hear short descriptive phrases or sentences (e.g., "thin, white, something you write on") and use those sentence-level clues to guess the hidden object. Activity 4 asks students to write or copy a sentence that describes an object from the bag, giving practice linking words in a sentence to the object they refer to.
Lesson 10
Earth Materials: Rocks, Soil, and Water
Students complete sentence-completion activities that require choosing prepositions from a box and testing different prepositions in context (e.g., "The frog jumps ___ the lily pad," "The boat floats ___ the water"). Option 2 asks students to create prepositional phrases by placing a preposition in the sentence and writing the rest of the phrase, encouraging use of sentence context and illustrations to determine which words fit. Students are asked to look through the books and use the pictured contexts to decide which prepositions work on specific pages.
Unit 2: Senses
Lesson 2
Senses and Body Parts
Students listen to a narrated story (Option 1) and are prompted to pick up and glue the sense organ when Jackie "uses a sense," which requires them to use sentence-level cues to identify which sense is referenced. In Activity 2, students read short situational sentences (e.g., "Your mom is cooking dinner, and you walk in the door and smell it") and point to the sense organ they would use, using the sentence context to select the correct referent. Activity 4 asks students to write the words "sense" and "see" in sentences, giving practice with words in sentence contexts.
Lesson 4
Hearing and Seeing
Students listen to two short spoken descriptions and decide which place is being described (Activity 5), using sentence-level auditory details as clues to infer setting. Students are blindfolded and led into different rooms or on walks and use the sounds they hear to guess locations, recording and comparing their observations. Students attempt to read their sound descriptions aloud to others to see if listeners can guess the noisy place from the sentences they wrote.
Lesson 8
Writing About Our Senses
In Activity 1 (Sensing Logic), students read or listen to three short sentence-level clues (e.g., "I am smooth. I can be hot. I make a loud hissing noise.") and use those sentence clues to eliminate pictures and select the correct object. The activity requires students to interpret the meaning of the descriptive sentences and match that meaning to an image by crossing out non-matching items and coloring the remaining picture.
3: Patterns
Unit 2: Patterns in Sounds, Words, and Actions
Lesson 4
Sentence Patterns
Students read incomplete sentences and select words that make sense in context (Completing a Sentence Pattern Part A provides options like girl, couch, house for "The ______ ate lunch"). Students choose or write action words that fit sentence meaning (Part B asks students to pick or write verbs such as "opened" for "My mom ______ the door"). Students construct sentences from noun and verb lists (Making Sentences) and read them aloud to judge whether the sentence makes sense, and they identify nouns and verbs in sentences read or copied from books.
4: Change
Unit 1: Changes on Planet Earth
Lesson 3
Changing Position
The lesson's Skills list explicitly includes the target skill of determining or clarifying word meanings based on grade 1 reading and content. In Activity 1 (Using an Index), students locate the words "gravity" and "inertia" in the book's index, go to the indicated pages, and copy the sentence(s) from the book that contain those words. The Reading and Questions section also has students read or listen to the book and answer content questions that place vocabulary like "gravity" in sentence contexts.
Lesson 5
Changes in Location
Students complete sentences that contain a blank preposition (Where Did He Go? activity) and choose the correct preposition from a provided word box. Students listen to or read sentences describing locations (Mouse in the House) and move the cut-out mouse to the location named in the sentence. Students write sentences describing object relationships outdoors or in the room, using positional words in sentence context.
Lesson 6
Changes in the Sky
Students are asked to list adjectives and phrases describing the Sun and Moon and to discuss their ideas, which exposes them to vocabulary in context. Students hear the sentence, "the Moon does not produce its own light. Instead, the Sun actually illuminates (or lights up) the Moon," where the parenthetical synonym links the word "illuminates" to its meaning. Students also hear and act out verbs such as "revolve" and "rotate" while the teacher explains their meanings in the activity demonstrations.
Unit 2: Characters Change
Lesson 1
What's in a Name
In Activity 4 (Vocabulary) students listen to the story, pause after target words, and are asked to guess each word's meaning based on how it is used in the text, then match their guess to the actual definition. In Activity 3 (Feeling Phrases) students read author phrases and identify what those phrases communicate about Chrysanthemum, with instruction to go back and find the phrases in the story and listen to them in context. The reading questions also prompt students to attend to wording and phrasing in the story to infer characters' feelings and meanings.
Lesson 5
The Raft
Students are asked in Activity 2 to read each sentence on the Vocabulary page and use clues in the text to guess which definition matches each target word, then write the matching letter on the line. The Student Activity Page shows six sentences with blanks and six definition choices, requiring students to use sentence-level context to determine the correct meaning. Activity 6 asks students to reread specific sentences and discuss idioms (e.g., "She had eyes in the back of her head," "it was like finding presents under a Christmas tree"), prompting students to infer meaning from the sentence context.
6: Reading
Unit 1: Semester 1
Lesson 1
Letter Sounds Review I
The lesson prompts students to consider sentence context during reading: Activity 5.3 instructs students to ask "Does that word make sense here?" and to "skip over this word for now, and read the rest of the sentence" to help figure out what might make sense. The reading guidance also tells students to use pictures to figure out words and to try the first sound when a word is unknown. Activity 1.2 asks students to distinguish meanings of words (e.g., that "angry" is a feeling versus objects), which involves attending to word meaning in context.
Lesson 4
Letter Sounds Review IV
Students use word cards to complete sentences in Activity 5.3, selecting words that make sense in the sentence context (e.g., "the cat ran to a _____"). After reading Reader #4 in Activity 5.2, students answer why-questions about characters' actions, requiring them to use sentence- and story-level information to explain events. In Activity 3.1 students read sight-word sentences aloud and point to each word, providing practice with words in sentence contexts.
Lesson 17
Semester Review
In Activity 1.3 students listen to sentences from the "There and Their" page read aloud and are asked to point to the correct sight-word card, then they view the sentences and underline "there" or "their" in each sentence. In the Wrapping Up section students reread the Weekly Message and are asked to point to the two words that sound the same, with an explicit note explaining how "their" is used in the message (showing possession in context). These tasks require students to use sentence-level context to decide which word fits.
Unit 2: Semester 2
Lesson 1
Long Vowels a and i with Silent e
Students are asked to distinguish and choose between the homophones "there" and "their" by listening to whole sentences and pointing to the word that fits each sentence (Activity 1.3). Students listen to sentences containing "like" and "likes," identify the word in context, and note how the sentence changes the word form (Activity 3.3 and Sentence Dictation). These tasks require students to use sentence-level context to select the correct word form or spelling based on meaning in the sentence.
Lesson 4
More R-Controlled Vowels (er, ir, or, ur)
During Day 2 the adult may prompt the child with a sentence-level clue: "This is a vegetable that you eat on a cob. What is this word?" to help the child read and identify "corn." The Weekly Message and sight-word activities ask the child to read words in sentence context and to find new sight words within the Weekly Message. The reader activity has the child read a short story and answer questions that require using sentence- and story-level context to comprehend events.
Lesson 5
Long a Spellings ai, ay
On Day 2, Activity 2.3 (Fill in the Blanks) students are instructed to read each sentence carefully and choose/write the correct word from a Word Bank so that the sentence makes sense; five sentences are used for this practice. On Day 5, Activity 5.1 students read The Gray Day and answer an inferential question ("What do you think the boys would do if they went outside?"), requiring them to use sentence/story context to infer meaning or likely actions. The instructions repeatedly prompt students to read sentences carefully before selecting words and to explain word meanings as needed, which directs student attention to sentence-level clues.
Lesson 6
Long e Spellings ee, ey, ea
In Activity 2.1 students read pairs like "see" and "sea," hear that they sound the same, and read sentences while the teacher points to the correct word to show different meanings, explicitly linking sentence context to word meaning. Activity 4.2 has students build and read full sentences from word cards, giving practice reading words in sentence contexts. Activity 5.1 asks comprehension questions after reading a short reader, requiring students to use sentence meaning to answer questions about text.
Lesson 7
Long i Spellings y, igh, ie
In Activity 3.3 (Fill in the Blanks) students are given a word bank and asked to read sentences carefully and try words until they find the one that makes sense, explicitly using sentence context to choose meanings. In Activity 5.3 (Sentence Dictation) students write and then read dictated sentences while being reminded to attend to sentence beginnings and endings, reinforcing attention to sentence-level structure and meaning.
Lesson 8
Long o Spellings ow, oa, oe
Students are asked to reread the weekly message and to point to and read words they know, which provides opportunities to use surrounding text for word recognition. The Skills list explicitly includes "Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary." Students also read sentences aloud (Sentence Dictation) and answer comprehension questions after reading the reader, which involve attending to sentence meaning and structure.
Lesson 9
Long u Spellings ue, ew, ou
Students complete a Fill-in-the-Blanks activity (Activity 2.2) where they read sentences and choose the correct word from a word bank so each sentence makes sense. Students read sentences that contrast blue/blew (Activity 3.1) and are asked to underline the correct word and explain the meanings in context. Students read and point to sight words in example sentences (Activity 1.3) and read the reader text (Activity 5.1), answering comprehension questions that require understanding word meaning in sentence context.
Lesson 10
Other Long Vowel Patterns
The lesson's Skills list explicitly states that students will "Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary." Activity 3.3 (Fill in the Blanks) asks students to read each sentence carefully and choose the correct word from a Word Bank so the sentence makes sense, requiring use of sentence-level context. After completing the page, students read the completed sentences aloud, reinforcing selection based on sentence context.
Lesson 11
Long Vowel Sounds Review
Students complete Fill-in-the-Blanks activities (Activity 3.1 and Activity 5.3) in which they read each sentence and select a word from a provided word bank so the sentence "makes sense." Instructions prompt students to "read each sentence carefully before she selects the correct word" and to answer the question, "Which word will make the most sense in each blank?" These tasks require students to use sentence-level context to determine which word fits the meaning of the sentence.
Lesson 12
Other Vowel Sounds oi, oy
Students are asked inferential comprehension questions after reading The New Toy (e.g., "What do you think Dan's new toy is?"), which requires them to use story context to make a meaning-based guess. Students create sentences from word cards (Making Sentences) and read dictated sentences, giving them practice with words in sentence contexts. Several activities note that adults should "explain word meanings as needed," so students encounter words within sentence- and passage-level contexts where meanings may be discussed.
Lesson 13
Other Vowel Sounds ou, ow
The Skills list explicitly includes "Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary," indicating students are expected to use context. During Activity 2.1 the teacher reads words and may "explain meanings as needed," and students are asked to explain their sorting groups, which can involve using surrounding information. In Activity 5.1 students read a short reader and answer comprehension questions that require attending to sentence- and story-level information (e.g., "Why do you think the hound howls at the owl?").
Lesson 14
Other Vowel Sounds aw, au
Students read sentences aloud (Weekly Message #14) and reread short texts (Reader #14) where words occur in sentence context. The Skills list explicitly includes "Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary." Students are given example sentences for the sight word "made" (They make a cake today. They made a cake yesterday.) and are asked about the meaning of "saw," discussing its multiple meanings.
Lesson 15
These Make More Than One Sound: oo and ea
Activity 4.2 (Question Words) asks students to read a box of question words and write the correct question word in sentence blanks, requiring them to use the sentence context to choose the appropriate word. The activity directions tell students to read each question word before beginning and to try words in different blanks until the sentence context indicates the best fit.
Lesson 16
Silent Starts: kn, wr, gn
In Activity 3.3 students are given sight-word cards (know, write, just) plus the words no and right and are asked to point to the correct word as the teacher reads sentences, which requires using sentence-level context to choose the appropriate word. The Skills list explicitly includes "Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary," indicating an expectation that students use context to check word meaning. During Reader #16 students read a short story and answer comprehension questions, which could provide opportunities to use sentence context to interpret word meaning.