Language
Understand the rules governing how words are used to build sentences and communicate ideas to impact reading comprehension, writing, and oral communication.
Why build students' language skills?
- Understand how sentences are constructed: Note the relationships between words and ideas in sentences and paragraphs.
- Navigate complex sentences: Recognize grammatical cues that increase text complexity.
- Improve reading fluency: Understand sentence structure and punctuation to predict a text's flow and read at an appropriate pace.
- Enhance speech and oral language skills: Develop proficient grammar and language skills to improve communication.
Strong grammar skills are essential in language arts and all subjects. For example, a solid language foundation makes it easier to understand complex instructions in math problems and comprehend scientific texts.
How can Language resources supplement your instruction?
- Provide daily practice: Elevate the grammar instruction included in a core curriculum.
- Provide additional practice: Review grammar skills.
- Practice independently: Create meaningful opportunities for students to develop skills, including centers, seat work, and homework.
Important Terms
- Grammar: The set of rules of language use, including parts of speech, tenses, punctuation, syntax, morphology, semantics, and phonology.
- Syntax: The arrangement of words to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.
- Morphology: The study of how words are formed and how adding or removing word parts changes the tense or part of speech.
- Semantics: The study of word meanings and how they are interpreted (i.e., connotation, denotation).
- Phonology: The study of how the parts of language sound.
Mastery of language skills boosts students' confidence in both oral and written communication. Learning A-Z resources equip learners with the necessary tools through:
- Explicit instruction with built-in spiral reviews
- Daily practice
- Engaging learning centers