English Language Arts 2

Unit 1: Story and Text

Big Idea: stories and other texts help us learn about ourselves, our families, and our communities. Finding the parts every story has, spotting a writer's special tricks, using clues on the page, and using the words readers use to talk about books.

• Who the story is about
• What happens in the story
• Where and when the story happens
• The shape of a story
• When characters talk

• Noticing a writer's word choices
• Words that sound like a poem
• Words that don't mean exactly what they say
• Playing with how words sound
• Pictures the words make in your mind
• What colour adds to a story
• A picture that stands for something

• Using clues on the page to find information

• Talking about books like a reader

Unit 2: Strategies and Processes

Big Idea: using language in different ways helps us learn and share our understanding. Using tricks to read and understand a story, tricks to speak and listen well, tricks to notice our own thinking, and the steps for writing a piece.

• Using pictures and what I already know
• Reading it again
• Telling the story in my own words
• Finding the main idea and details
• Sounding out words using patterns
• Knowing words by sight
• Checking that reading makes sense
• Fixing my own reading mistakes

• Asking a question when I'm not sure
• Sharing what I think
• Using my voice to sound interesting
• Waiting for my turn to talk
• Talking so my listeners understand

• Thinking back on my work
• Asking myself if I understand
• Picking something to get better at
• Checking my own work

• Making my writing better
• Fixing up my writing
• Thinking about who will read it

Unit 3: Language Features, Structure, and Conventions

Big Idea: language and text can be a source of creativity and joy. Noticing how our voice changes talking, spotting word families, forming letters neatly, building a sentence that makes sense, and using the everyday writing rules that help others read our work.

• The feeling in my voice
• How loud or soft I talk
• My voice going up and down
• How fast or slow I talk
• Using my hands and face when I talk

• Spotting a pattern in words
• Words that belong to the same family

• Forming letters correctly

• Joining two short sentences into one

• Using periods and question marks
• Using capital letters