Literacy Standards
The following indicators outline the developmental benchmarks and literacy behaviors that most children display at a particular age/grade. All are aligned with guidelines and standards established by the Arizona Department of Education. Seen together, they show the progression of development over time, but it is important to remember that all children develop at a different pace and follow varied patterns of development.
For very young children, key components of language and communication development include modeling conversations, book handling, and picture/story comprehension. For preschool and K-3 students, indicators of developing language and emergent literacy provide a clear overview of the learning goals to be achieved by the end of each year. Across the higher grades, indicators may have similar wording, but they are to be applied with increased focus to progressively more challenging texts and tasks.
Reading Standards for Literature
- Independently and proficiently read grade-appropriate and increasingly complex literature from a variety of genres.
- Analyze how key details build the central idea or theme of a text.
- Cite textual evidence to support analysis and inferences.
- Compare and contrast how texts from different genres address similar themes or topics.
- Analyze the interaction of literary elements, such as setting, characters, plot, theme, etc. to consider the impact one element might have on another.
- Determine the central idea or theme of a text as well as write an objective summary.
- Analyze intentional author choice by comparing and contrasting characters, points of view, structures, mediums and citing evidence to support analysis.
- Compare and contrast a written form of text to an audio, visual, or staged version of the text.
- Determining and analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone.
Reading Standards for Informational Text
- Analyze the interaction between/among individuals, events, and ideas presented in a variety of informational texts.
- Cite appropriate textual evidence to support inference drawn from informational texts, as well as writing effective objective summaries of the text.
- Analyze claims by evaluating the supporting reasoning and evidence presented in a text.
- Analyze and evaluate how different authors present the same subject/topic through varying mediums.
Writing Standards
- Develop and produce clear and coherent writing for a variety of tasks, purposes, and audiences using argumentative, informational, and narrative writing types.
- Develop arguments supported with reasoning and evidence gathered from multiple credible print and digital resources.
- Begin to acknowledge opposing viewpoints in writing.
- Routinely plan, draft, revise, and edit writing tasks.
Speaking and Listening Standards
- Collaboratively discuss and analyze a variety of subjects.
- Develop and practice respectful communication skills in order to clarify, extend, and challenge presented information.
- Present arguments and information, incorporating multimedia and other visual/audio elements as appropriate to meet the needs of the audience and purpose.
Language Standards
- Demonstrate mastery of grade level conventions (grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling).
- Choose among simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentence structures to signal differing relationships among ideas.
- Apply various strategies to determine the meaning of unknown words, phrases, and figurative language.
Source: Arizona Department of Education, Arizona English Language Arts Standards
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