What Is a Reader and a Writer?
Using a balance of literature and informational texts, students will begin to learn the foundational skills needed to become a reader and writer. The students will become familiar with text structures.
This unit should be paired with the Reading Foundations units which focus on print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics, word recognition and building fluency. It is essential that these skills are not taught in isolation, but applied within students reading and writing.
Essential Outcomes
Reading
- KR1: Develop and answer questions about a text.
- KR2: Retell stories or share key details from a text.
- KR3: Identify characters, settings, major events in a story, or pieces of information in a text.
Reading Foundations – Print Concepts and Fluency
- KRF1a, c, e: Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.
- KRF4: Will engage with emergent level texts and read-alouds to demonstrate comprehension.
- Addressed in RF unit: Phonological Awareness and Phonics and Word Recognition
- KRF1b, d
- KRF2: Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).
Language
- KL6: Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts.
Writing
- KW3: Use a combination of drawing, dictating oral expression, and/or emergent writing to narrate an event or events in a sequence.
Speaking and Listening
- KSL1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse peers and adults in small and large groups and during play.
- KSL6: Express thoughts, feelings, and ideas.
All Standards Addressed in This Unit
- See Reading Foundations Units:
- KRF1b, KRF1d, KRF2a-e, KRF3a-d
- KR1, KR2, KR3, KR6
- KRF1a, c, e, KRF4
- KL1, KL2, KL5, KL6
- KW2, KW3
- KSL1, KSL3, KSL6
Essential Questions and Big Ideas
- What makes a student?
- Students follow agreed-upon rules for discussions including listening to others, taking turns, and staying on topic.
- Students participate in discussions through multiple exchanges.
- Students consider individual differences when communicating with others.
- Students actively verbalize or act out thoughts, feelings, and ideas.
- Participate in meaningful classroom discussions.
- What makes a reader?
- Readers follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.
- Readers recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters.
- Readers understand that words are separated by spaces in print.
- Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book.
- Readers ask and answer questions about the text after listening or reading the text.
- By retelling the events in a story using beginning, middle, and end, readers deepen their understanding of the text.
- Readers use their understanding of letters, letter sounds, words and pictures to gather meaning from a text.
- What are story elements?
- Characters are who or what the story is about.
- Setting is the time and place where the story happens.
- What makes a writer?
- Writing is a communication tool to retell experiences to an audience.
- Writers use their understanding of letters, letter sounds, words and pictures to narrate an event or events in a sequence.
Download the complete Kindergarten ELA Unit 1 framework to customize for your own planning.