Learning Letters is a collection of all of the K-2 Reading Foundations Skills Block curricular materials related to learning about letter names, sounds, and formation. The contents include the research behind EL Education's approach to teaching letters, Letter Stories (engaging read-alouds, one for each letter of the alphabet and consonant digraph ("ch", "sh", and"th"), upper- and lowercase Keyword Cards (a colorful picture of the animal or object associated with each letter, and Handwriting Sheets (letter formation and handwriting practice sheets).

A single comprehensive resource that includes many of the documents needed to understand the design and to effectively implement the K-2 Reading Foundations Skills Block, including an assessment overview, assessment conversion chart, Benchmark Assessments (teacher and student materials), Activity Bank, information on independent and small group work, syllabification guidance, handwriting guidance, and a glossary.

Introduction to EL Education Language Arts Curriculum. It explains the structure of our program and lays out the principles behind our design. It includes our approach to addressing ELA standards, and specifics about the key features of our comprehensive literacy curriculum as well as a description of the 3-5 Life Science Modules.

The K-5 Recommended Texts & Other Resources List contains books and other resources that have been selected by our experts to support research or read-alouds for each module.

This critical document lists all trade books that schools and districts must purchase to implement the EL Education K-5 Language Arts Curriculum and includes the specific texts and quantities (e.g., one per classroom, six per classroom, one per student) required.

The curriculum map is the single best source to understand the year's work in the module lessons for each grade level: a detailed view of the scope and sequence of the modules showing module titles, topics, targets, and standards explicitly taught and formally assessed in each module.

Grade level rubrics for three types of writing: opinion/argument, informative/explanatory, and narrative. EL Education created these K-5 rubrics based on an analysis of the grade-level demands, rubrics used by common assessment platforms, and EL Education's own professional expertise (including attention to the Writing for Understanding framework).

The modules in the EL Education Grades 3–8 ELA Curriculum have been designed by teachers and for teachers to meet the needs and demands of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). They exist to address and bring to life the shifts in teaching and learning required by the CCSS. To better prepare students for college and the workplace, where they will be expected to read a high volume of complex informational text and write informational text, the shifts highlight the need for students to begin to learn and practice these skills early on. This curriculum has been designed to make this learning process engaging and enjoyable with compelling texts, tasks, and topics.

Each module includes seven assessments: six unit-level assessments, one in the middle of each unit and one at the end, as well as a final performance task at the end of the module. Each of the unit-level assessments evaluates students' independent work on a reading, writing, speaking, or listening task. The final performance task is a more supported project, often involving research, in which students create an authentic real-world product.

EL Education's Grades 3–8 ELA Curriculum has been designed by teachers for teachers to meet the needs and demands of the Common Core State Standards: to address and bring to life the shifts in teaching and learning required by these higher academic standards. To prepare students for college and the workplace, where they will be expected to read a high volume of complex informational text and write informational text, the shifts highlight the need for students to learn and practice these skills early on. This curriculum has been designed to make this learning process engaging with compelling topics, texts, and tasks.

Each module comprises eight weeks of instruction, broken into three units. Each unit contains two assessments: one in the middle and one at the end of the unit. Unit 3 has an additional assessment, a performance task that is a more supported project, which often involves research.

The lesson is the heart of the module "map." When teachers ask, "How am I going to get from Point A to Point B?" the lesson shows them how to do so concisely, thoughtfully, and successfully on a day-to-day basis.

A year of instruction with EL Education Grades 3–8 ELA Curriculum consists of four modules. Teachers can choose from a total of six modules that are offered for each grade level. Before teaching a module, teachers are encouraged to read the module-level documents carefully to understand the “arc,” or story, of students’ learning. Module-level documents explain the design and flow of the content and assessments as well as how the assessments build toward the final performance task of each module. Specifically, analyzing the Module Overview, Assessment Overview, and Performance Task documents gives teachers the context they need to begin to implement a given module.

The units help the teacher really begin to consider how the implementation of the modules will look and sound in the classroom. In particular, the Unit Overview document helps teachers begin long-term planning and determine how each unit, and lessons within units, emphasize key ideas, build toward assessments, and flow together over the course of several weeks. On this page, we'll look at the Unit Overview closely.

Before you analyze specific modules or lessons at a particular grade level, it's important to become acquainted with the yearlong overview documents. The content of this page begins with the Curriculum Plan for a bird's-eye view of the Grades 3–5 Curriculum or Grades 6–8 Curriculum. This is followed with the individual grade-level Curriculum Maps. These maps can be used to help teachers and teams understand not only how each module builds on the preceding module, but also when and how often each standard is assessed. The maps also provide an opportunity to identify content connections. Lastly, this page focuses on the Foundations of Reading and the Common Core Interventions documents, which complete the picture of reading instruction and the Grades 3–8 Curriculum.

Second grade students in Boston, MA created a professional-quality music video as a culmination of an interdisciplinary study of snakes. Their song, based on Lady Gaga’s hit “Born This Way,” was written by students, and the video became a viral phenomenon. This film features the video and gives the backstory of the video through an interview with the teacher. It focuses on two themes: how students overcome their fears, and how standards can be joined to discovery, joy, and beautiful work. Illuminates CCSS ELA standards W.2.7, W.2.1, W.2.2, W.2.3, W.2.5, W.2.8, W.2.6, (All of CCSS for Writing for second grade).

The Supporting English Language Learners guidance document provides a high-level overview of our system for supports for English language learners, including cultural and linguistic supports. Includes details on our use of the California English Language Development standards (ELD), and details about "language dives" and "conversation cues."

An overview of the Common Core research techniques to address Common Core research standards.

The K-5 Text Analyses includes an analysis of every central text used in the EL Education Language Arts Curriculum, focusing on four specific qualitative aspects of complexity: meaning, structure, language features, and knowledge demands. This document includes text analyses for grade 4.

The K-5 Text Analyses includes an analysis of every central text used in the EL Education Language Arts Curriculum, focusing on four specific qualitative aspects of complexity: meaning, structure, language features, and knowledge demands. This document includes text analyses for grade 5.