1st Grade - Gateway 2

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria that texts are organized around a topic/topics to build students knowledge and vocabulary which will over time support and help grow students’ ability to comprehend complex texts independently and proficiently.

The curriculum has four modules that are all organized around specific science or social studies topics. Module 1 and 4 are social studies topics and Module 2 and 3 are science topics. Module 1 is about reading and books, Module 2 is about different creatures, Module 3 is about forces, and Module 4 is about different versions of Cinderella.  Within each module, there are Essential Questions for a group of lessons that break the big topic into more focused topics. 

In Module 1, students hear several literary and informational texts about books and reading. Students learn how people access books across the world, the purpose of librarians, and the importance of books. Topics and texts include:

• In Lessons 1-12, students read a variety of texts to learn how books and libraries can impact someone’s life. They hear the literary texts, Tomas and the Library Lady and Waiting for the Biblioburro by Monica Brown.

• In Lessons 13-16, students learn how people around the world get books by reading My Librarian is a Camel by Margriet Ruurs.

• In Lessons 17-22, students hear That Book Woman by Heather Henson and David Small and discuss how the librarian changes the life for the main character. 

• In Lessons 23-27, students reflect on how books can change their lives by reading Museum ABC by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.

In Module 2, students hear literary and informational texts about different animals. They begin by discussing lessons in literary books featuring animals, and then learn about Jane Goodall, and how animals use their unique features. Examples of topics and texts include:

• In Lessons 1-9, students discuss the lessons they learn through stories featuring animals including "The Hare & The Tortoise" and "The Ants & the Grasshopper" by Aesop. 

• In Lessons 10-14, students learn how Jane Goodall made discoveries about animals by listening to Me... Jane, by Patrick McDonnell. 

• In Lessons 21-26, students learn how animals use the same feature in unique ways by reading several texts, including What do You Do with a Tail Like This? by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. 

• In Lessons 27-32, students learn how animals use their unique features in unexpected ways by reading texts, such as Never Smile at a Monkey by Steve Jenkins. 

In Module 3, students hear literary and informational texts about forces in nature. Specifically they learn about wind in nature as well as the power of emotions. Examples of topics and texts include:

• In Lessons 1-7, students learn how wind is a powerful force. They read and interact with several texts, including Feel the Wind by Arthur Dorros. 

• In Lessons 8-12, students learn about feelings through the book, Feelings by Aliki. 

• In lessons 13-31, students then return to discussing the force of wind by reading the literary texts, Gilberto and the Wind by Marie Hall Ets, Brave Irene by William Steig, and The Boy who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer to explore how characters respond to the powerful force of the wind. 

In Module 4, students read several different versions of Cinderella. Some examples include:

• In Lessons 1-9, students begin by reading Cinderella by Marcia Brown and Cendrillon: A Caribbean Cinderella by Robert D. San Souci.

• In Lessons 10-16, students read the Algonquin Cinderella, Rough - Faced Girl by Rafe Martin.

• In Lessons 17-27, students read Adelita by Tomie dePaola and The Korean Cinderella by Shirley Climo.

The instructional materials reviewed for 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.

Throughout the program, students answer a variety of coherently sequenced questions and tasks. The questions help students engage with and analyze the complex texts that they hear throughout the year. Questions involving vocabulary require students to analyze the language within the read aloud. Student answer questions about story elements, vocabulary words, and text structure. 

Examples of questions that require students to analyze language include:

• In Module 1, Lesson 19, students learn the word, scholar, after reading That Book Woman by Heather Henson and David Small and are asked how Cal’s attitude changed about being a scholar-boy by the end of the text and if he turned into a scholar-boy. 

• In Module 2, Lesson 3, students hear Fish by Mary Ann Hoberman, and while learning about the word, move, students are asked which of the words means to move the slowest and which means to move the quickest. 

• In Module 3, Lesson 2, students hear Feel the Wind by Arthur Dorros, and while learning about the word, powerful, students are asked how the wind is powerful.

• In Module 4, Lesson 10, students hear and discuss the word invisible. They read the sentence with the word from the story and are asked what clues can help them figure out the meaning, what word parts they see, and what they think it means. 

Examples of questions that require students to analyze key ideas include:

• In Module 1, Lesson 18, students focus on the story elements of That Book Woman by Heather Henson and David Small and are asked questions, such as "What do they notice about where Cal lives? What is the resolution of the story?"

• In Module 2, Lesson 2, students answer, "What did you learn about the problem from Grasshopper’s interaction with the ants?" in the first three paragraphs of "The Ants & The Grasshopper" by Aesop. 

• In Module 3, Lesson 23, students read and analyze how the wind impacts the character Irene Brave Irene by William Steig. The teacher reads several different pages, and after each page, the students answer, "What the wind is doing? How Irene feels about it? How the text supports the answer?"

• In Module 4, Lesson 14, students read Bigfoot Cinderrrrrella by Tony Johnston and analyze the main character: "What can you infer about Ella based on her actions?"

Examples of questions that require students to analyze details include:

• In Module 1, Lesson 5, students are asked how page 3 in the beginning of Tomas and the Library Lady by Pat Mora and Raul Colon is similar to and different from the end of the book.

• In Module 2, Lesson 11, after hearing Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell, students are asked what Jane does to learn about animals on pages 4-7 and what Jane is curious about and what she does on pages 10-15. 

• In Module 3, Lesson 14, after hearing Gilberto and the Wind by Marie Hall Ets, students are asked how the events on the last page are similar to and different from the rest of the story. 

• In Module 4, Lesson 3, after hearing Cinderella by Marcia Brown, students are asked how Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters treated Cinderella. 

Examples of questions that require students to analyze craft include:

• In Module 1, Lesson 25, after reading Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, students analyze the author’s craft by looking at how the author indicators which of the two characters are speaking in the story. 

• In Module 2, Lesson 18, students hear Seahorse: The Shyest Fish in the Sea by Chris Butterworth, where the size of the font changes. Students analyze this author’s craft and are asked what they learn from the different size fonts and how the type of information is different. 

• In Module 3, Lesson 9, students hear Feelings by Aliki and learn how the author uses the bird character to reflect his own point. Students are asked what reasons in the text support the author’s point and if the reasons support the author’s point that feelings can be touched by someone. 

• In Module 4, Lesson 28, after hearing several versions of Cinderella, students are asked what elements have been similar in all of the Cinderella stories that they have read so far. 

Examples of questions that require students to analyze structure include:

• In Module 1, Lesson 28, students read Museums ABC by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and are asked what they know about how the book is organized. 

• In Module 2, Lesson 23, students hear What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page, learn about text features, and are asked how the text features help them learn about the platypus. 

• In Module 3, Lesson 27, students hear The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer and work together to make a timeline of the story. 

• In Module 4, Lesson 23, after hearing The Korean Cinderella by Shirley Climo, students identify story elements and share where in the text they identified the information.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria that materials contain a coherently sequenced set of text-dependent questions and tasks that require students to analyze the integration of knowledge and ideas across both individual and multiple texts.

Throughout the program, students answer a set of text-dependent questions and tasks that require them to analyze the integration of knowledge and ideas across both individual and multiple texts. Throughout the four modules, the students learn about books and libraries around the world, animals, powerful forces, and different Cinderella stories across the world. Students answer questions in individual texts and across multiple texts in order to integrate the knowledge that they have learned.

Examples of questions include:

• In Module 1, Lesson 15, students learn how students across the world get books by reading My Librarian is a Camel by Margriet Ruurs. Students complete a chart during a whole class discussion that identifies the country and where students get books in that country. 

• In Module 2, Lesson 11, after reading Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell, students answer, "How Jane interacts with nature? Why? What was Jane’s dream?" 

• In Module 2, Lesson 20, students compare the text Seahorse: The Shyest Fish in the Sea by Chris Butterworth to the video, “Pygmy Seahorse: Masters of Camouflage."

• In Module 3, Lesson 4, after reading Feel the Wind by Arthur Dorros, students are asked what are some of the things wind can do and why weather forecasters want to know about the wind. 

• In Module 4, Lesson 27, students choose one of the Cinderella texts from the module and compare it to the informational article, “900 Cinderellas” by Marcia Amidon. Students read to find what was the same in the article and in the story that they chose.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria that the questions and tasks support students’ ability to complete culminating tasks in which they demonstrate their knowledge of a topic through integrated skills (e.g. combination of reading, writing, speaking, listening).

In each module, there are several focusing question tasks that scaffold the materials to aid in the successful completion of the End-of-Module (EOM) Task. The focus tasks come at the end of each topic in the module. The materials contain sets of high-quality sequences of text-dependent questions and activities that build to each culminating task. Many of the specific tasks are focused on a piece of writing but are about the text that they listened to the teacher read aloud, which provides learning through integrated skills. Students also rehearse the writing with a partner before writing. 

Examples of the Focus Question Tasks and the EOM Tasks include:

• In Module 1, Lesson 11, students write a retelling of the story Waiting for the Biblioburro. Before writing, students work with a peer to orally retell the story. This helps students complete their own narrative as the EOM Task where they write a narrative story about a character and how books have changed their lives. Before beginning, students use a Mix and Mingle to discuss how authors use story elements when writing stories.

• In Module 2, Lesson 19, students apply their knowledge of features gathered from reading Seahorse: The Shyest Fish in the Sea. They write a paragraph about how seahorses use their unique features. This supports students in completing the EOM Task where they write what they have discovered about an animal’s unique features. Once students select an animal, students orally rehearse with a partner before writing, which integrates speaking, listening, reading, and writing.

• In Module 3, Lesson 24, students retell a scene from Brave Irene, in which they orally rehearse their scene with a partner before writing it. The EOM Task requires students to write a narrative story that shows how a character responds to a powerful, windy day. This requires students to integrate knowledge from the texts in this module. The Focus Question Task supports the EOM Task by requiring students to retell a story. 

• In Module 4, Lesson 24, students complete Focusing Question Task where they write an opinion paragraph about Adelita or Pear Blossom. Before beginning the task, students talk with a peer to discuss which trait they admire most about Adelita or Pear Blossom. Then before beginning to write in Lesson 26, students orally rehearse their paragraph before writing. This supports the EOM Task where students write about which Cinderella they admire the most. Like the Focus Question, students also rehearse their paragraph before they write it. 

The instructional materials reviewed for 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 materials include a year-long vocabulary plan. Vocabulary words are taught both implicitly and explicitly, using words from the texts read aloud. Vocabulary instruction includes a focus on multiple meanings, shades of meaning, concept maps, and morphology. Vocabulary Routines are found in the Resources section of the Implementation Guide and include routines such as Frayer Model, Morpheme Matrix, Outside-In, Relationship Mapping, and Word Line. Teachers also use Word Walls and Vocabulary Journals for students to record newly-acquired words and vocabulary strategies Appendix B includes additional vocabulary support. It explains that vocabulary instructional strategies are explicitly introduced and practiced throughout the program. The appendix also includes a Module Word List and a list of words that would pose a challenge to student comprehension. Vocabulary is assessed through questions in the module vocabulary assessments. 

Examples of explicit vocabulary instruction throughout the program include: 

• In Module 1, Lesson 8, after reading Waiting for the Biblioburro by Monica Brown and John Parra, students learn the words village, burros, market, and collect. The teacher then gives three sentence stems: "What is ______? What does ______ mean? How does ______ work?" Students place the vocabulary words in the sentence stems. Students then work with the text to find the word to help determine the meaning of the word. The students write the definition and then draw a quick sketch. They do this for each word with a partner. 

• In Module 2, Lesson 16, students learn how to use a concept map to be able to categorize the words or attributes that they have learned about seahorses after hearing Seahorse: The Shyest Fish in the Sea by Chris Butterworth. As a class, students define what a seahorse is and what it has on its body. Students discuss the answers with a partner before sharing in the whole group and the teacher records it on the concept map. Then partners work together to complete the rest of the concept map. 

• In Module 3, Lesson 22, the teacher rereads page 11 of Brave Irene and instructs students to listen to words that have the -ing ending. Some of the words on the page are measuring, cutting, pinning, and stitching. Students talk about the root words and the -ing. Then students add one of the words to their Vocabulary Journals, drawing a line to separate the root word from the ending and rewriting the root word. 

• In Module 4, Lesson 28, students work on sorting words into categories after listening to Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: A Worldwide Cinderella by Paul Fleischman. The teacher begins by displaying words and asks students what some of the words have in common and how they can group similar words together. The teacher models, and then students work in groups of three to sort the words into the categories of food, clothes, and footwear. 

The instructional materials reviewed for 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. 

Throughout the materials, students engage in writing lessons almost daily that support them in building and communicating substantive understanding of topics and texts. Students engage in different forms of writing. Students begin the year with narrative writing, move to informative writing, then another narrative writing piece, before opinion writing. Students spend roughly 20 or more minutes of writing per lesson. Students begin the year by learning what makes a complete sentence, before learning how to write paragraphs of the different genres.

They participate in shared writing which enables them to build their understanding of exemplary writing through developing a piece of writing as a class. In addition, while the teacher reads, students participate in Stop and Jot, which allows them to respond to texts. Students draw a quick sketch to represent their response or write. Throughout the program, students also follow a similar protocol for the different genres of writing. For informational writing, students include a topic sentence, sentences with facts and details, and a conclusion. For opinion writing, students state an opinion about the topic, supply reasons that support the opinion, and then a sentence to reinforce their opinion. For narrative writing, students are taught to include characters, setting, problem, events, and a resolution. Writing rubrics are included in the Implementation Guide that are unique to Grade 1.

Specific examples of writing tasks and how they build over the year include:

• In Module 1, Lesson 9, students explore complete sentences. The teacher displays several complete sentences so students can help develop a definition of a complete sentence. The students then think-pair-share to check several sentences against the criteria for complete sentences and identify the subjects and verbs. 

• In Module 2, Lesson 28, students learn how to include conclusion sentences in their paragraphs. They had previously learned how to write topic sentences and detail sentences. The teacher shows the students two different paragraphs, one with a conclusion and one without, and asks the students what they notice. In the next lesson, the students write their own conclusion sentences for their informative paragraphs. 

• In Module 3, Lesson 11, students write their second narrative story. In this lesson, students write a problem for their story. Students write a story about the sequenced pictures in “Lost and Found” from the text Feelings on page 24. Students write sentences detailing the problem and then draw a picture of the character’s face as a reminder of how the character might have felt. 

• In Module 4, Lesson 10, students begin learning how to write opinion pieces. Students review the components of an opinion paragraph and learn some sentence frames to begin opinion statements. The teacher then asks questions about Rough-Face Girl and the students use the sentence frames to answer the questions. Then in the next lesson, students begin creating their own opinion statements. 

The instructional materials reviewed for 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.

Throughout the program, students are given ample opportunities to help them develop their research skills by engaging in shared research projects. Beginning in Module 2, there is a research component included in each module that provides students with lifelong research skills. They begin with shared research of an animal in order to independently write an informative paragraph about the animal. Then students complete two more research projects about wind and textiles.

Specific examples of research lessons and tasks include:

• In Module 2, Lesson 26, students practice researching an animal with a partner.  They begin by using the text What do You Do With a Tail Like This? and then a second supplementary text. Students then choose one piece of evidence to answer the research question and write one sentence about the evidence. The End-of-Module Task requests students to use the gathered evidence during the shared class research to write an informative paragraph about the paragraph. 

• In Module 3, Lesson 3, students begin to gather facts to write their own informative text about the wind. In this lesson, students read about wind in two different sources and then decide what is the same and what is different between the two sources. Students record information in a graphic organizer. Then in the next few lessons, students continue to research by looking at different sources and analyze the similarities and differences between them. In Lesson 8, students write an informative paragraph to share the research they have collected as a group. 

• In Module 4, Lesson 20, students explore informative texts on textile designs to gather evidence for a research paragraph. In this lesson, students research and write one sentence about the information on a sentence strip that will be added to the corresponding textile research chart.