1st Grade - Gateway 2

The instructional materials reviewed for Benchmark Grade 1 meet the criteria that materials contain sets of coherently sequenced questions and tasks that require students to analyze the language (words/phrases), key ideas, details, craft, and structure of individual texts in order to make meaning and build understanding of texts and topics.

Mentor Read-Alouds, Shared Reading, and Extended Reads provide opportunities for students to analyze words/phrases and or author’s word choice according to grade level standards. Tables and charts are created to help students determine word meaning in various ways. Texts are used for comprehension strategies like key ideas and details, structure, and craft according to grade level standards. By the end of the year, components like language, word choice, key ideas, details, structure, and craft are embedded in students’ work rather than taught directly. Each three week unit focuses on an Essential Question that combines direct instruction with independent practice of skills.

• In Unit 1, Week 3, Day 3, Mentor Read 2 Mini-Lesson, students use illustrations and photos to describe key ideas. The teacher models how to use the first sentence of the text with the photo and caption to describe key details. During Guided Practice, the teacher uses directive prompts such as: “How does the illustration help you understand what the text means when it says that Morgan’s signal had signs? What words are in the picture?” During Share Your Knowledge, students suggest other visuals that could be included in a biography of Garrett Morgan.
• In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 3, Shared Reading, with the text “Nan and Blue,” students, in partner groups, answer questions about visualizing and imagining Blue as a character. Students answer questions about the details that helped to better understand the text. Also in Week 2, Day 3, during the Extended Read 1 Mini-Lesson, students analyze the text by analyzing other details that were not mentioned in the story, but that were in picture format to assist in the understanding of the meaning.
• In Unit 3, Week 1, Day 3, Mentor Read 2, students make inferences about characters. The teacher models making an inference about the robin: “The author tells us that the robin ‘built a sturdy nest, strong and safe for her babies.’ I know that when a mother takes extra special care for her children it is because she really loves them and cares for them. The actions of the robin show me that she has a caring personality.” During Guided Practice, students are prompted to think critically about story clues with questions such as: “What did the fox do to show he is clever? What did the robin do that shows she is even more clever than the fox?” During Show Your Knowledge, students use a sentence frame about one of the characters: “The [robin/fox] is [sneaky, patient, clever] because….”
• In Unit 6, Week 3, Day 2, the Extended Read 2 text, Why Mosquitos Buzz In People’s Ear, is read to answer questions about story events. To develop this objective, the teacher asks students to listen carefully for signal words. To model, the teacher states, “The words Iguana walked past tell me about the next event. I can answer the question like this: ‘Iguana gets a drink and walks past Python before Python hides in the rabbit hole.’” Through analyzing the words used in this text, the teacher supports students’ comprehension of the text. Following up on this learning, students then write to add details to their description of the setting or events in a story they have written. Teachers monitor students progress with language, word choice, key ideas, details, structure and craft components through conferring and monitoring procedures within the lesson plan.
• In Unit 7, Week 2, Day 2, Extended Read 1 Mini-Lesson, the teacher models using a timeline to help understand the order of events in the text. The teacher models using the Text Evidence Question: “How are events ordered on a timeline?” The teacher connects the timeline to a timeline from Chapter 1. During Guided Practice, students use the Text Evidence Question: “How do timelines give details about events?” During Share Your Knowledge, students tell which timeline format they find easiest to read and understand.
• In Unit 8, Week 1, Day 3, students and teacher read “Why The Sun and The Moon Live In The Sky.” Objectives for this day’s reading are to identify words that have more than one meaning to help students comprehend. Some words analyzed in the story are room and rose. Writing for this day’s reading task entails students summarizing the story using the words first, next, and last. The teacher is able to gauge students grasp of definitions and concepts of the components
• In Unit 10, Week 1, Day 2, students read the story, “Sounds I Love!” Students draw a picture about the sounds heard in the story. During the Mentor Read 1 Mini-Lesson, students work to make inferences about the texts. Students answer the following 4 questions during the guided reading, “Where do the sounds that we read about on this page take place? Who makes these sounds? What are the sounds? What can you infer about this place based on these details?”

The instructional materials reviewed for Benchmark Grade 1 meet the criteria that materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to interact with and build key academic vocabulary words in and across texts.

The vocabulary instruction for Grade 1 provides opportunities for students to learn academic vocabulary in Shared, Mentor, and Extended Texts. Additionally, vocabulary is reinforced through activities completed in the Grammar, Spelling and Vocabulary Workbook. Throughout each unit, students read, write, illustrate, manipulate and complete fill-in the blank prompts for practice and to gain competency with learned vocabulary words. Materials provide teacher guidance on the unit opener page for each unit. Routines, procedures, and lessons guide the appropriate use of vocabulary used in each unit. Vocabulary is repeated in contexts and across multiple texts. Attention is given to essential vocabulary supporting students comprehension of texts. Students are supported to accelerate vocabulary learning with vocabulary in their reading, speaking, and writing tasks.

Vocabulary lessons highlight the most relevant vocabulary words aimed at building knowledge of the unit topic and support comprehension. To support students’ understanding of complex texts, the following vocabulary words and mini-lessons are targeted. Opportunities to interact and build vocabulary include:

• In Unit 2, Week 3, Day 2, the teacher models how to notice shades of meaning among verbs in The Gingerbread Man. “Authors often use the verb to show when characters are speaking to each other. The verb said doesn’t really tell me anything about how the characters feel. However, on page 11, the author uses the verb cried.” During Guided Practice, students learn three more verbs, and students reread each example with expression. Students are asked critical thinking questions such as: “What does the verb cried tell us about how the characters feel? How would the meaning of a sentence change if the author used the verb whispered instead of said?
• In Unit 3, Week 3, Day 1, students learn what realistic fiction is. Academic vocabulary words used in the discussion are realistic fiction, characters, setting, events.
• In Unit 4, Week 3, Day 3 students hear the text, The Fox and The Little Red Hen, and students used context clues to figure out the meaning of, stealthily, perched and rafters. During Guided Practice, students answer the following prompts: “What does the word (perched, rafters) mean? How did the words near (perched, rafters) help you figure out its meaning? What did the illustration show to help you?”
• In Unit 5, Week 2, vocabulary learning on Day 2 involves affixes in Using Technology at Work. Students learn -ers and -ists. On Day 3, students sort the words (cartoonists, pilots, computer, computer tools, flight controls, wheel, headsets, radios) from Using Technology at Work into two groups: the kind of workers who use technology, and the type of technology they use.”
• In Unit 6, Week 2, students read the story, Why Turtle Shell’s Crack, and work with the vocabulary words shiny, greedy, gaze, look, reflections, peer and groom. Students use affixes during the vocabulary part of the lesson. The teacher models strategies in how to decode unknown words and determine the meaning of the words.
• In Unit 7, Week 3, Day 3, students learn how to use context clues to figure out the meaning of words they encounter in a text that they do not know. The words independence, memorials, and law are used in the task. In Show Your Knowledge, “Ask students to draw a picture to give context clues about the meaning of a difficult word from the text. Have them label the picture with the word. Invite volunteers to explain their context clues.”
• In Unit 9, Week 1, the vocabulary instruction for Build Vocabulary includes milk and good from “From Dairy Farm to You” and “The Most Important Service.” The teacher engages students’ thinking with: “Can you think of any multiple-meaning words?” During Model, students learn how to use the context to figure out the meaning of milk. During Guided Practice, the teacher uses prompts to help students figure out the meaning of good. For Show Your Knowledge, students write two sentences demonstrating the different meanings of the word milk.

The instructional materials reviewed for Benchmark Grade 1 meet the criteria that materials contain a year long, cohesive plan of writing instruction and tasks which support students in building and communicating substantive understanding of topics and texts.

The Benchmark materials include support for Grade 1 students’ writing instruction for a whole year’s worth of instruction engaging students with the grade level writing standards. Writing lessons, tasks, and projects authentically integrate with reading, speaking, listening, and language. Writing tasks and projects are varied and include learning, practice, and application of writing skills. The teacher materials provide models, protocols, and plans to support implementation of the writing tasks, projects, and supports as well as guidance or support for pacing of writing over shorter and extended periods of time appropriate to the grade level. Examples of materials containing a year long, cohesive plan of writing include but are not limited to:

• In Unit 2, students focus on Writing to Sources by writing a key detail about a character, a description of a character, a dialogue and a new ending to a story. Students wrap up the week’s writing assignments by writing an opinion about the stories that have been read during the unit. During Week 2, day 4, students write a narrative about the story, The Princess and the Pea.
• In Unit 3, Week 1, Day 2, students write a narrative about a frog using facts learned in the informational text, “The Amazing Life Cycle of a Frog.” The teacher models how to select a character to write about as the first step in this writing activity. The next step is to determine a setting for the story. Once this is done, the teacher talks about writing events in sequence and models “describing events in sequence.” Students give examples of events in sequence related to the story. The final step is to model creating an ending. This is all done orally before the teacher models the writing. Then, the teacher models the writing. After the modeling, students work with a partner to discuss their own story about a frog. In this discussion, students are asked “to start from what they learned in the text and use their imaginations to add events to their story.” The students write a story and the teacher monitors and confers with students during this time. Once the writing is finished, the teacher models sharing writing with a student as a partner. The focus of this sharing activity is to give compliments to one another. Once the teacher is done sharing, students are paired up to do the same activity.
• In Unit 4, Week 3, Day 4, students learn how to revise and edit writing to make it the strongest it can be. The teacher reads his/her draft of process writing done throughout the week. To revise and edit, the teacher uses a think aloud strategy. Criteria the teacher looks at in his/her writing is: Does my story have a beginning, middle, or end? Did I use enough adjectives to make my writing more vivid and detailed? Is my ending strong? Refer to the editing checklist.
• For partner share, students read their writing to a peer. Students are encouraged to give one way to improve the writing shared. Students independently write. The teacher uses this time for Building Language Review: Use Adjectives and confer and monitor prompts to gauge students’ progress with the task. An Integrated ELD is provided for teachers to support students having varied levels of need. In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 2, students fill out a key details chart using the familiar text “Robots at Work.”
• In Unit 6, Week 1, Day 1, students read the story, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” Students write an apology note. Students first write a note of apology to the villagers as a shared writing document and then complete one independently.
• In Unit 7, Week 3, Day 4, students complete a Compare and Contrast chart on two informational texts, titled “Memorials and Historic Buildings” and “The Story of the White House.” Students compare and contrast how the authors of these texts present information about a similar topic.” The teacher models comparing and contrasting two texts by reviewing the chart and explaining what information goes in each column on the chart. The teacher discusses how texts are alike and different and writes that information on the chart. The teacher also fills in the middle column with information that both texts share with the reader. Students are guided to add more information into the chart and share writing with a partner.
• In Unit 10, Week 1, Day 1, students are introduced to the mentor text, “Sounds I Love.” The purpose for the process writing task this week is to write a sensory poem. Before writing, the teacher reads the mentor text. Students and the teacher analyze the poem identifying what they hear, see, smell, taste, touch and think when they read the poem. After reviewing each line of the poem, the teacher models how to describe the features of a sensory poem. Students practice orally with a peer and discuss what they might see, smell, touch, hear, taste, and think about the poem. Students engage in a quick write to provide an end to the poem. Support for teachers to help students is provided in the Integrated ELD. Completed work is placed in a writing portfolio.

The instructional materials reviewed for Benchmark Grade 1 meet the criteria that materials include a progression of focused, shared research and writing projects to encourage students to develop knowledge and understanding of a topic using texts and other source materials.

Benchmark Materials include shared research and writing projects to encourage students to develop knowledge and understanding of a topic using texts and other source materials. In the core materials, students have opportunities to participate in writing tasks that develop students’ knowledge on a topic via provided resources. Shared research is found in the Connect Across Disciplines Inquiry Projects section. The teacher will have to provided the resources for research in Connect Across Disciplines Inquiry Projects. Research skills requires students to focus on a routine of investigation, creating, presentation, reflection, and responding. Each unit includes three connect across disciplines inquiry projects. Most require a week to complete, and some extend beyond a week’s time. Over the course of a year, tasks within the inquiry project routines increase in the depth and difficulty of assigned tasks. Teachers have to use and provide supplemental resources such as websites, books, and pictures. A recommended trade books tab gives teachers additional books to potentially use and incorporate throughout the specific unit of study. Materials also provide opportunities for students to apply reading, writing, speaking & listening in addition to language skills for students to synthesize and analyze grade level readings.

• In Unit 1, Connect Across the Disciplines Inquiry Projects, students can participate in the short research project called “Create a Community Map. As a class, students view maps of neighborhoods, towns, a country, and the world. Students create a large classroom map based on their shared research. Students add symbols to the map to represent key locations such as the library, school, or city hall.
• In Unit 3, Week 3, students develop informational text over the course of the week. Students write an informational text about a living thing from one of the texts we have read in this unit. Day 1 is devoted to brainstorming topics to write about. After the teacher models the brainstorming process using a brainstorming chart, students begin a brainstorming chart with a partner. Students brainstorming individual topics, “Write a list of living things that you could write about for your own informational text. When you are finished, circle the idea you like the best.” Students discuss the best idea chosen with a partner. On Day 2, students plan what will be written. On Day 3, students begin a draft and Day 4 is revising and editing. On Day 5, students share writing.
• In Unit 4, Connect Across Disciplines Inquiry Projects, students create an Old West comic book in “Create an Old.” Students view and read books and websites about children’s lives in the Old West. Materials required are books and websites about children’s lives in the old west, paper, colored pencils, and a stapler. Students create a comic book, as well as compare and contrast the everyday lives of children of the old west with children of modern times. As a class, students and the teacher develop a story based upon information learned through the readings from within the unit. Groups produce illustrations for the story and share with peers for observation and analysis. Students pay attention to details portrayed in the illustrations to make determinations of how life was similar and different from old west and modern times.
• In Unit 7, Week 2, students write informational text. Students work on revising and adding more information over the course of the next two weeks. Day one is spent reading a mentor informational text, “Dogs Are Special.” The teacher takes the students through an analysis of the text to develop an anchor chart for informative papers. Students then complete a quick write where they will “have five minutes to write a true-life topic you care about. Write about facts you know are true.” Students share writing with a partner.
• In Unit 9, Week 1, Day 2, students read through a previously read mentor text, “From Dairy Farm to You.” The text is utilized to gather information for the informational text. Students will be using a text source note-taking form to add the facts found in the text. After filling out the note-taking form for two pages with the teacher, students will do the same thing with the next two pages of the text.
• In Unit 10, Connect Across Disciplines Inquiry Project, students learn how to use sound to communicate at a distance in “Make a Megaphone. Students make a megaphone to demonstrate this learning. Teachers provide the following materials: picture books and websites about sound, cardboard, stiff paper, or cardboard tubes, tape, stapler, or glue, crayons and markers, a large indoor or outdoor space. Unspecified websites and books are required as presentation materials needed for teacher instruction. Students also investigate kinesthetically using their cupped hands to figure out that sound can be directed. This activity leads students to making a megaphone using stiff paper or cardboard to roll into the shape of a megaphone. In partner pairs, students stand at opposite ends of the classroom to test out their findings and compare communication with and without their communication devices. To complete the project, students and teacher reflect on their learning discussing noticings from their investigation.

The instructional materials reviewed for Benchmark Grade 1 meet the criteria that materials provide a design, including accountability, for how students will regularly engage in a volume of independent reading either in or outside of class.

Benchmark materials provide the opportunity for students to read independently throughout the school year. The materials include a resource in Program Support titled, “Managing Your Independent Reading Program,” which details the expectations for teachers and students to be reading both in class and independently at home. The “Managing Your Independent Reading Program” includes: resources for organizing independent reading, the classroom library, room arrangement, anchor charts, mini-lessons for promoting independent reading, reading response journals and logs, discussion groups, book recommendations, guidance for conferring with students, and information on growing your classroom library. According to Benchmark materials, “Students should also be encouraged to develop a routine of reading daily at home for a minimum of 20 minutes, either independently or with a parent.” In the independent reading stage, students are required to self-select and to read materials at their own ‘just-right’ levels.” The Three-Finger Method is recommended for Emergent and Early Readers, which includes:

1. Choose a book that you would like to read
2. Turn to any page and begin reading
3. If there are three words that you can’t pronounce or that you don’t understand, the book is too difficult for you
4. Repeat the process until you find a “just-right” book.

A tracking system is recommended in the “Managing Your Independent Reading Program” to track students’ independent reading in the form of a reading log and reading response journal. Reading response journals are kept by students and used to record personal responses to texts they have read or will read. It is suggested that young students can draw pictures as a means of reflecting their reading. Teachers demonstrate proper techniques, provide mini-lessons on how to respond to literature and model several prompts by listing them on chart paper, and hang the paper on the wall. The reading log is also suggested as an independent reading tracking tool. In reading logs, students keep a record of what they have read by writing the book title, author, illustrator, genre, and date read.

There is sufficient teacher guidance to foster independence for all readers and procedures are organized for independent reading included in the lessons, for example, as stated in the text, “Within Benchmark Advance, students may participate in daily independent reading during the Independent and Collaborative Activity block, while the teacher meets with small groups of students to conduct differentiated small-group reading instruction, model fluency skills through reader’s theater, or reteach skills and strategies.” Students complete a variety of reading activities in the reading block. Students have shared reading and mentor read-alouds each week. There are also a set of small group texts that will be used in small group time. Each set of texts is leveled according to Guided Reading levels. Student independent reading materials span a wide volume of texts at grade levels. These text titles are included as a teacher resource, Recommended Trade Books.