First Grade – Curriculum Guide

Parent To-Do List

• Provide a steady routine of healthy meals and nine hours of sleep per night.
• Control the television, video games and computer in your home. This is important because they have addictive tendencies and pose potential risks.
• Read with your child, to your child, and in front of your child as often as you can. This is critical.
• Proofread your child's homework to emphasize quality of work and responsibility.
• Please don't send your child to school when showing signs of illness.

Writing Assessment

Writes words and brief sentences that are legible. Uses letter and phonetically-spelled words to write about experiences, stories, people, objects, or events. Spell words using the alphabet principle. Writes words from right to left and top to bottom of page. Writes upper case and lower case letters in proper form and spacing. The resulting score is a 1, 2, 3, or 4, described below. A score of 3 meets state and district first grade standards.

Score

Characteristics of assessments earning the score
4

• Responds to prompt by writing a clear, well-elaborated paragraph that maintains a consistent focus.
• Demonstrates ability to organize ideas that move through a logical sequence and includes a clear beginning, middle, and end.
• Consistently uses descriptive vocabulary that addresses a variety of senses (sight, touch, smell, hearing, taste)
• Writes clear, coherent, and varied sentences. Includes use of declarative, exclamatory, and/or interrogative words
• Shows correct use of punctuation, capitalization, grammar (use of singular and plural nouns)
• Handwriting is clear and legible.

3

• Responds to prompt by writing a clear, coherent paragraph that maintains a consistent focus.
• Demonstrates ability to organize ideas in a logical sequence.
• Uses descriptive vocabulary that addresses some of the senses (sight, touch, smell, hearing, taste).
• Writes clear, coherent sentences. (may include some sentence variation).
• Shows correct use of punctuation, capitalization, grammar use of singular and plural nouns, contractions, possessives, and spelling.
• Handwriting is clear and legible.

2

• Some responses to prompt, but focus is not clear.
• Demonstrates some ability to organize and sequence ideas. Sequence might not be logical.
• Uses few descriptive words.
• Writes simple sentences that show little evidence of sentence variation. Sentences may be repetitive, run-on, or fragmented.
• Contains errors in punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and spelling, e.g. May spell short vowel words and grade level sight words incorrectly.
• Handwriting is legible. Some letters may not be spaced appropriately.

1

• May not respond to prompt. No evidence of a focus.
• Little evidence of organization and sequencing of ideas.
• No use of descriptive words, or use of inappropriate descriptive words.
• Writes words or phrases rather than sentences.
• Contains many errors in capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and spelling. Error interferes with the reader's understanding.
• Handwriting may not be legible. Letters and words may not be spaced appropriately.