This is a collection of resources to support the development of literacy. Literacy is foundational to students’ academic and future success. Literacy includes reading, writing and oral language. A substantial portion of your day should be spent explicitly teaching literacy strategies and skills during your ELA classes. Additionally, students should also be provided with opportunities to practice literacy strategies and skills in all subject areas to help work towards mastery.
English Language Arts instruction should be evidence based and align with Structured Literacy (that follows the Science of Reading). Instruction should address both parts of the Scarborough Reading Rope and include Word Recognition (Phonological Awareness, Decoding & High Frequency Words), as well as Language Comprehension (Background Knowledge, Vocabulary, Language Structure, Verbal Reasoning & Literacy Knowledge). Together both parts of the rope develop fluency and result in Reading Comprehension as skills become increasingly strategic and automatic.
As students develop Word Recognition skills they move from looking at the sound, to the syllable to the morpheme. While you will need to utilize all of these features while working with words, these grades are wonderful time to start introducing students to morphology. Your school will have a copy of Morpheme Magic which can support you in leveraging learning how words work with your students.
The Writing Revolution is another support that your school should have a copy of. Lessons to integrate writing into all content areas has been developed by teachers for sentences, note-taking, paragraphs and larger pieces of writing.
To learn more about Structured Literacy please visit our Structured Literacy Collection and watch for Professional Development Opportunities throughout the year. You can also find many supports including ELA Course Maps, Grammar Scopes and Sequences, Rubrics, Exemplars and much more on The ELA Hub.
These Ministry of Education Treaty Education Learning Resource Guides outline:
Treaty Education - Key Questions for K-4, 5-9
Treaty Education Outcomes and Indicators
Inquiry Questions for each grade
Teacher Background Information
Suggested Resources
This resource effectively illustrates the ways in which animals are important to the health and future of the planet. Four lessons demonstrate how human activities, including those related to climate change can result in habitat fragmentation and threaten the viability of entire ecosystems. The resource includes a teacher's guide, background information, student activity pages, videos and extension ideas for individual, group and community action.
Activity One: What’s your View? (1 x 60 minutes)
Teachers set up a 'four corners' activity in which students read a variety of statements concerning animal welfare and decide if they agree or disagree. The class then discusses as a group the importance of animals in sustaining healthy ecosystems and the value of their relationships with humans.
Activity Two: Video (1 x 60 minutes)
Students watch a video called “Why Animals Matter” and complete a short quiz to check their understanding of key concepts raised in the video. A discussion follows on what can be done to make the world a better place for animals. Suggestions for extension activities are included.
Activity Three: Eco-investigation (3 x 60 minutes)
Students go outside to study local biodiversity. Working in groups, they select a 2m square sample site near the school yard and determine the variety of plant, fungi and animal life found. The inventory includes the abiotic characteristics of soil, rocks, water sources as well as any evidence of human disturbance. Students are also asked to take notice of the resources that species need to survive (food, water, cover and space) and how humans have impacted these resources.
Activity Four: Understanding Habitat (3 X 60 minutes)
After a discussion on the inter-dependency of the four core elements of a habitat, the class is invited to brainstorm ideas as to the causes and effects of habitat fragmentation and the importance of wildlife corridors. Students then review a newspaper article describing how habitat fragmentation due to road construction in parts of India has impacted elephant populations. Four groups of students take on the role of stakeholders in a wildlife corridor project for the benefit of these elephants. Groups must develop a persuasive statement to reflect their point of view. Peer evaluation and class discussion follow.
An extension activity suggests students research the habitat requirements of a wild animal, how these needs can be threatened by human disturbance and what solutions should be considered.
A unit for students in grade 6 that explores the causes and consequences of residential schools in Canada.
"Our intention is not only to teach the history, but also to engage our learners in the critical thinking process
so it is no longer just the sharing of information, the critically thinking about what led us to this point in time, and intentionally planning for where we want to go in the future as we walk along the path to Reconciliation.
Reconciliation is both an individual journey as well as a collective journey. Our hope is that this resource will support our students in learning the history present within our community, create intercultural understanding of our complex communities, and help build the unknown future ahead."
The lesson plans in this resource are organized into three lines or units of inquiry. The lines of inquiry
are designed to develop students’ understanding and ability to respond to an overarching question and
challenge:
Overarching inquiry question: What might meaningful reconciliation look like?
Overarching challenge: Create a powerful representation to show what meaningful reconciliation means.
If taught individually, the lessons help students understand various aspects of residential schools and
reconciliation in Canada. As components of a unit of study, these lessons invite critical inquiry into a wider
range of topics and issues relating to reconciliation in Canada.
Each lesson includes detailed instructional strategies and required support materials. These include briefing
sheets, activity sheets, images, and source documents.
This site offers Intriguing Times images stripped of their captions -- and an invitation to students to discuss them live. The same images could also be used as writing prompts as well.
Word Connections is a supplemental reading intervention program.
It includes 40 lessons (40 min each), divided into four units of instruction.
Developed for students in third grade and above who continue to experience challenges with word reading even though they have developed foundational decoding skills.
The lessons focus on promoting automaticity with reading “big words.”
Using morphology as the framework to teach students how to learn the meaning of words that are new or unfamiliar to them.
Independant writing assignments for grades 1 through 9 including descriptive, expository, narrative paragraphs; poetry; scripts, letters, biographies, rebus stories, story from a picture, and reports.
Find mini lessons and anchor charts for each grade level (K-2, 3-6, 7-9 & 10-12) on The Writing Revolution's sentence-level activities, note-taking strategies, a sequence for teaching a single paragraph and multiple paragraph compositions with activities and examples. An implementation plan is provided, as well as how to infuse writing into math, along with pacing guides and other lesson ideas. This resource has everything you need to start using The Writing Revolution at the sentence-level, note-taking, paragraph and mutiple paragraph writing strategies in your classroom or school. We recommend that you have a copy of this book to use as a support in your classroom to assist with implementaiton (especially if you are the ELA teacher). This is an outstanding resource.
In 2022, two collaborative groups of Australian educators formed to create Syntax & Punctuation and Morphology resources.
These resources are available for free to promote a culture of sharing and collaboration amongst schools.
The lessons can be edited and adapted to reflect the topics & curriculum content taught in your classroom.
You must sign up for an account to access the resources.
*These activities also align with The Writing Revolution!
The Syntax Project & The Morphology Project; Lessons; PD & More
Write interactive stories, choose your own adventure stories, etc.
This is a great tool to boost writing engagement.