Language Arts and Literacy encompass skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Skills for the reading and writing components of the program are listed below. Listening and speaking skills are developed and practiced throughout the GMS curriculum. In fact, Language Arts and Literacy skills as a whole are integrated and reinforced throughout the curriculum.

In 2003-2004, a new focus on literacy was implemented across the GMS curriculum. The literacy program now includes two supporting components: new language mechanics curricula (Sadlier-Oxford’s Word Study program for grades 1-6 and Perfection Learning’s Grammar Works for grades 7-8) and the Touchstones program, a discussion/literacy engagement program for grades 3-6. Additional components of the literacy program include developmentally appropriate classroom libraries in each of the four homerooms, expanded in-class reading and writing time, expanded independent reading and writing time, dialogue journals, read-alouds, reading logs, and training in literacy skills throughout all the core curricular areas.

Reading Skills

• use letter sounds, syllables, and spelling patterns to decode words
• read simple texts for understanding
• identify the beginning, middle, and end of a story
• identify the characters, time and place, and plot of a story
• retell major events of a story in sequential order
• answering who, what, when, where, why, and how
• compare and contrast characters and texts
• make predictions from the title, cover, illustrations, and prior knowledge about texts

Writing Skills

• write in complete sentences
• use capital letters and periods in written work
• write to express personal ideas
• write to convey information
• begin to use the writing process--including pre-writing, rough draft, editing for spelling errors, and publishing
• identify nouns and verbs in a sentence
• use legible manuscript writing

Reading Skills

• read fluently for objective understanding
• follow written directions independently
• summarize verbally and in writing what they have read
• compare and contrast characters, plot, and setting within and between texts
• draw reasonable conclusions regarding inferences in more difficult texts
• identify the problem, climax, and resolution for any story they read
• identify literary devices such as foreshadowing, flashback, and motive
• recognize character development

Writing Skills

• write compound and complex sentences
• write using basic paragraph form
• use appropriate capitalization and punctuation-including commas, question marks, exclamation points, and quotation marks
• use the complete writing process--pre-writing, rough draft, revising, editing, and publishing-to produce a summary, a friendly letter, a personal narrative, a story, and a poem
• make use of reference materials in the research process and write to inform
• recognize homophones, synonyms, and antonyms
• identify the eight parts of speech, as well as the subject and predicate in a sentence
• use legible cursive handwriting

Reading Skills

• use contextual clues to derive meaning from challenging words or text
• recognize cause and effect within a text
• find and make use of textual evidence to support their ideas in a discussion
• identify the seven literary elements of any story
• identify detail in reading and creative writing
• identify the six poetic devices in literature
• distinguish between the various forms of writing--including novels, short stories, autobiographies, biographies, poetry, and journalism
• identify various analogy models

Writing Skills

• write coherent, complete, complex sentences with appropriate punctuation and capitalization
• construct paragraphs with the topic sentence, expanded evidence, and conclusion
• understand the essay structure; develop the basic outline of a five-paragraph essay-- including the generalization paragraph, thesis, body, and concluding paragraph
• use the writing process to produce literary analysis, a poetry anthology, and a short story.
• use the dictionary and thesaurus to improve writing
• know the meanings and uses for the eight parts of speech, the subject, and the predicate
• identify root words, prefixes, suffixes, and derivatives

Reading Skills

• synthesize and analyze textual information
• use prefixes, suffixes, roots, derivatives, and parts of speech to identify word meanings in isolation
• identify and solve various analogy models
• make accurate literary inferences
• identify and use textual evidence to support ideas in writing
• identify and analyze the seven literary elements of stories
• define and identify literary genre

Writing Skills

• use verb tenses and subject-verb agreement correctly
• use active, versus passive, voice in writing
• construct personal responses and express personal opinions in a coherent, efficient manner
• write a complete essay using the five-paragraph format
• use the writing process to produce a critical essay, short story, feature article, and character sketch
• identify prepositional phrases, subject complements, and clauses