Language Arts

Grade 6: Reading	Planning: Term # Tracking: Ach. Level
Overall Expectations	1	2	3	4
1. read and demonstrate an understanding of a variety of literary, graphic, and informational texts, using a range of strategies to construct meaning;
2. recognize a variety of text forms, text features, and stylistic elements and demonstrate understanding of how they help communicate meaning;
3. use knowledge of words and cueing systems to read fluently;
4. reflect on and identify their strengths as readers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading.
Specific Expectations
1. Reading for Meaning
Variety of Texts: 1.1 read a wide variety of texts from diverse cultures, including literary texts (e.g., short stories, poetry, myths, legends, fantasies, novels, plays), graphic texts (e.g., graphic novels, advertisements, atlases, graphic organizers, charts and tables), and informational texts (e.g., biographies, textbooks, and other non-fiction materials; articles and reports; print and online editorials, various electronic texts, webquest texts)
Purpose: 1.2 identify a variety of purposes for reading and choose reading materials appropriate for those purposes (e.g., online and print sources to compare different approaches to the same topic; webquest texts for information on a historical topic; graphic organizers, charts, and tables for specific information; a novel or a nonfiction book on a favourite topic for personal enjoyment)
Comprehension Strategies: 1.3 identify a variety of reading comprehension strategies and use them appropriately before, during, and after reading to understand increasingly complex texts (e.g., activate prior knowledge on a topic through brainstorming and developing concept maps; use visualization and comparisons with images from other media to clarify details of characters, scenes, or concepts in a text; make predictions about a text based on knowledge of similar texts; reread or read on to confirm or clarify understanding)
Demonstrating Understanding: 1.4 demonstrate understanding of increasingly complex texts by summarizing and explaining important ideas and citing relevant supporting details (e.g., general idea and related facts in chapters, reports, tables and charts, concept maps, online and print magazine articles, editorials, brochures or pamphlets, websites; main theme and important details in short stories, poems, plays, legends)
Making Inferences/Interpreting Texts: 1.5 develop interpretations about texts using stated and implied ideas to support their interpretations. Teacher prompt: "What is the story between the lines ... beyond the lines? What clues did the author give that led to your conclusion? Why do you think the author doesn't state these ideas directly?"
Extending Understanding: 1.6 extend understanding of texts by connecting, comparing, and contrasting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other familiar texts, and to the world around them. Teacher prompt: "How does the author's treatment of this topic compare with treatments of the topic in other sources?"
Analysing Texts: 1.7 analyse increasingly complex texts and explain how the different elements in them contribute to meaning (e.g., narrative: contribution of characters, setting, and plot to the theme; persuasive argument: the role of the summing-up paragraph in highlighting the most compelling points in the argument)
Responding to and Evaluating Texts: 1.8 make judgements and draw conclusions about ideas in texts and cite stated or implied evidence from the text to support their views. Teacher prompts: "What conclusions can you draw from the events or information presented in the text?" "Has the author chosen the most convincing facts to support his or her opinion?"
Point of View: 1.9 identify the point of view presented in texts; determine whether they can agree with the view, in whole or in part; and suggest some other possible perspectives (e.g., ask questions to identify any biases that are stated or implied in the view presented). Teacher prompts: "Who would be most likely to share this point of view? Who would not?" "How would you revise the text to appeal to a different or a wider audience?" "Why do you think stereotypes are used in certain texts?"
2. Understanding Form and Style
Text Forms: 2.1 analyse a variety of text forms and explain how their particular characteristics help communicate meaning, with a focus on literary texts such as a myth (e.g., the use of imaginary/supernatural characters tells the reader not to interpret the story literally), graphic texts such as an advertisement (e.g., colour and layout are used to emphasize the appeal and importance of the product), and informational texts such as an editorial (e.g., the formal, logical structure of thesis, development, and summary/conclusion helps create an authoritative impression)
Text Patterns: 2.2 identify a variety of organizational patterns in a range of texts and explain how they help readers understand the texts (e.g., order of importance in a persuasive letter or news report, a grid and coordinates in a map, columns and rows in a table, time order in a biography)
Text Features: 2.3 identify a variety of text features and explain how they help readers understand texts (e.g., indexes, headings/subheadings, captions and labels, and drop-down menus help the reader locate key words, phrases, or ideas when skimming or scanning a text before reading)
Elements of Style: 2.4 identify various elements of style - including voice, word choice, and the use of hyperbole, strong verbs, dialogue, and complex sentences - and explain how they help communicate meaning (e.g., hyperbole provides drama and emphasis in a persuasive article; a complex sentence allows the author to combine ideas for succinctness and improved flow)
3. Reading with Fluency
Reading Familiar Words: 3.1 automatically read and understand most words in a range of reading contexts (e.g., words from oral vocabulary and grade-level texts; terminology used regularly in discussions and posted on anchor charts; words from shared-, guided-, and independent-reading texts and resource materials in the curriculum subject areas)
Reading Unfamiliar Words: 3.2 predict the meaning of and rapidly solve unfamiliar words using different types of cues, including: • semantic (meaning) cues (e.g., prefixes, suffixes, base words, phrases, sentences, and visuals that activate existing knowledge of oral and written language); • syntactic (language structure) cues (e.g., word order, language patterns, punctuation); • graphophonic (phonological and graphic) cues (e.g., words within larger words, syllables within longer words, similarities between words with known spelling patterns and unknown words)
Reading Fluently: 3.3 read appropriate texts with expression and confidence, adjusting reading strategies and reading rate to match the form and purpose (e.g., read a radio drama or radio editorial in role with suitable emphasis and phrasing)
4. Reflecting on Reading Skills and Strategies
Metacognition: 4.1 identify the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading and explain, in conversation with the teacher and/or peers, or in a reader's notebook, how they can use these and other strategies to improve as readers. Teacher prompts: "What questions do you ask yourself to check that you understand what you are reading?" "How do you know if you need to reread a section of a text?" "What else can you do if reading on or rereading does not clarify the meaning?" "In what way do you use your reader's notebook to help you as a reader?"
Interconnected Skills: 4.2 explain, in conversation with the teacher and/or peers or in a reader's notebook, how their skills in listening, speaking, writing, viewing, and representing help them make sense of what they read (e.g., using a particular form when writing enhances understanding when reading texts of a similar form). Teacher prompt: "Think about the conventions you used when creating a class newspaper. How will that information help you when you read the community newspaper?"

Expectations: Copyright The Queen's Printer for Ontario, 2006.  Format: Copyright B.Phillips, 1998.