Dearborn Educational Curriculum

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Conventions of Standard English: Print all upper- and lowercase letters.

Conventions of Standard English: Use common, proper, and possessive nouns.

Conventions of Standard English: Use singular and plural nouns with matching verbs in basic sentences (e.g., He hops; We hop).

Conventions of Standard English: Use personal, possessive, and indefinite pronouns (e.g., I, me, my; they, them, their, anyone, everything).

Conventions of Standard English: Use verbs to convey a sense of past, present, and future (e.g., Yesterday I walked home; Today I walk home; Tomorrow I will walk home).

Conventions of Standard English: Use frequently occurring adjectives.

Conventions of Standard English: Use frequently occurring conjunctions (e.g., and, but, or, so, because).

Conventions of Standard English: Use determiners (e.g., articles, demonstratives).

Conventions of Standard English: Use frequently occurring prepositions (e.g., during, beyond, toward).

Conventions of Standard English: Produce and expand complete simple and compound declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences in response to prompts.

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Conventions of Standard English: Capitalize dates and names of people.

Conventions of Standard English: Use end punctuation for sentences.

Conventions of Standard English: Use commas in dates and to separate single words in a series.

Conventions of Standard English: Use conventional spelling for words with common spelling patterns and for frequently occurring irregular words.

Conventions of Standard English: Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness and spelling conventions.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 1 reading and content, choosing flexibly from an array of strategies.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use frequently occurring affixes as a clue to the meaning of a word.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Identify frequently occurring root words (e.g., look) and their inflectional forms (e.g., looks, looked, looking).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: With guidance and support from adults, demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Sort words into categories (e.g., colors, clothing) to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Define words by category and by one or more key attributes (e.g., a duck is a bird that swims; a tiger is a large cat with stripes).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Identify real-life connections between words and their use (e.g., note places at home that are cozy).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Distinguish shades of meaning among verbs differing in manner (e.g., look, peek, glance, stare, glare, scowl) and adjectives differing in intensity (e.g., large, gigantic) by defining or choosing them or by acting out the meanings.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts, including using frequently occurring conjunctions to signal simple relationships (e.g., I named my hamster Nibblet because she nibbles too much because she likes that).

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Conventions of Standard English: Apply the understanding that usage is a matter of convention, can change over time, and is sometimes contested.

Conventions of Standard English: Resolve issues of complex or contested usage, consulting references (e.g., Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, Garner’s Modern American English) as needed.

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Conventions of Standard English: Observe hyphenation conventions.

Conventions of Standard English: Spell correctly.

Knowledge of Language: Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.

Knowledge of Language: Vary syntax for effect, consulting references (e.g., Tufte’s Artful Sentences) for guidance as needed; apply an understanding of syntax to the study of complex texts when reading.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 11–12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or text; a word’s position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Identify and correctly use patterns of word changes that indicate different meanings or parts of speech (e.g., conceive, conception, conceivable).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Consult general and specialized reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning, its part of speech, its etymology, or its standard usage.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Verify the preliminary determination of the meaning of a word or phrase (e.g., by checking the inferred meaning in context or in a dictionary).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Interpret figures of speech (e.g., hyperbole, paradox) in context and analyze their role in the text.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Analyze nuances in the meaning of words with similar denotations.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Acquire and use accurately general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Conventions of Standard English: Use collective nouns (e.g., group).

Conventions of Standard English: Form and use frequently occurring irregular plural nouns (e.g., feet, children, teeth, mice, fish).

Conventions of Standard English: Use reflexive pronouns (e.g., myself, ourselves).

Conventions of Standard English: Form and use the past tense of frequently occurring irregular verbs (e.g., sat, hid, told).

Conventions of Standard English: Use adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified.

Conventions of Standard English: Produce, expand, and rearrange complete simple and compound sentences (e.g., The boy watched the movie; The little boy watched the movie; The action movie was watched by the little boy).

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Conventions of Standard English: Capitalize holidays, product names, and geographic names.

Conventions of Standard English: Use commas in greetings and closings of letters.

Conventions of Standard English: Use an apostrophe to form contractions and frequently occurring possessives.

Conventions of Standard English: Generalize learned spelling patterns when writing words (e.g., cage → badge; boy → boil).

Conventions of Standard English: Consult reference materials, including beginning dictionaries, as needed to check and correct spellings

Knowledge of Language: Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.

Knowledge of Language: Compare formal and informal uses of English.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 2 reading and content, choosing flexibly from an array of strategies.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Determine the meaning of the new word formed when a known prefix is added to a known word (e.g., happy/unhappy, tell/retell).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root (e.g., addition, additional).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use knowledge of the meaning of individual words to predict the meaning of compound words (e.g., birdhouse, lighthouse, housefly; bookshelf, notebook, bookmark).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use glossaries and beginning dictionaries, both print and digital, to determine or clarify the meaning of words and phrases.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Identify real-life connections between words and their use (e.g., describe foods that are spicy or juicy).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Distinguish shades of meaning among closely related verbs (e.g., toss, throw, hurl) and closely related adjectives (e.g., thin, slender, skinny, scrawny).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts, including using adjectives and adverbs to describe (e.g., When other kids are happy that makes me happy).

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Conventions of Standard English: Explain the function of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in general and their functions in particular sentences.

Conventions of Standard English: Form and use regular and irregular plural nouns.

Conventions of Standard English: Use abstract nouns (e.g., childhood).

Conventions of Standard English: Form and use regular and irregular verbs.

Conventions of Standard English: Form and use the simple (e.g., I walked; I walk; I will walk) verb tenses.

Conventions of Standard English: Ensure subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement.*

Conventions of Standard English: Form and use comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified.

Conventions of Standard English: Use coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.

Conventions of Standard English: Produce simple, compound, and complex sentences.

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Conventions of Standard English: Capitalize appropriate words in titles.

Conventions of Standard English: Use commas in addresses.

Conventions of Standard English: Use commas and quotation marks in dialogue.

Conventions of Standard English: Form and use possessives.

Conventions of Standard English: Use conventional spelling for high-frequency and other studied words and for adding suffixes to base words (e.g., sitting, smiled, cries, happiness).

Conventions of Standard English: Use spelling patterns and generalizations (e.g., word families, position-based spellings, syllable patterns, ending rules, meaningful word parts) in writing words.

Conventions of Standard English: Consult reference materials, including beginning dictionaries, as needed to check and correct spellings.

Knowledge of Language: Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.

Knowledge of Language: Choose words and phrases for effect.*

Knowledge of Language: Recognize and observe differences between the conventions of spoken and written standard English.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning word and phrases based on grade 3 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Determine the meaning of the new word formed when a known affix is added to a known word (e.g., agreeable/disagreeable, comfortable/uncomfortable, care/careless, heat/preheat).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root (e.g., company, companion).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use glossaries or beginning dictionaries, both print and digital, to determine or clarify the precise meaning of key words and phrases.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Distinguish the literal and nonliteral meanings of words and phrases in context (e.g., take steps).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Identify real-life connections between words and their use (e.g., describe people who are friendly or helpful).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Distinguish shades of meaning among related words that describe states of mind or degrees of certainty (e.g., knew, believed, suspected, heard, wondered).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate conversational, general academic, and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships (e.g., After dinner that night we went looking for them).

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Conventions of Standard English: Use relative pronouns (who, whose, whom, which, that) and relative adverbs (where, when, why).

Conventions of Standard English: Form and use the progressive (e.g., I was walking; I am walking; I will be walking) verb tenses.

Conventions of Standard English: Use modal auxiliaries (e.g., can, may, must) to convey various conditions.

Conventions of Standard English: Order adjectives within sentences according to conventional patterns (e.g., a small red bag rather than a red small bag).

Conventions of Standard English: Form and use prepositional phrases.

Conventions of Standard English: Produce complete sentences, recognizing and correcting inappropriate fragments and run-ons.*

Conventions of Standard English: Correctly use frequently confused words (e.g., to, too, two; there, their).*

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Conventions of Standard English: Use correct capitalization.

Conventions of Standard English: Use commas and quotation marks to mark direct speech and quotations from a text.

Conventions of Standard English: Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence.

Conventions of Standard English: Spell grade-appropriate words correctly, consulting references as needed.

Knowledge of Language: Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.

Knowledge of Language: Choose words and phrases to convey ideas precisely.*

Knowledge of Language: Choose punctuation for effect.*

Knowledge of Language: Differentiate between contexts that call for formal English (e.g., presenting ideas) and situations where informal discourse is appropriate (e.g., small-group discussion).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 4 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use context (e.g., definitions, examples, or restatements in text) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use common, grade-appropriate Greek and Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., telegraph, photograph, autograph).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Consult reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation and determine or clarify the precise meaning of key words and phrases.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Explain the meaning of simple similes and metaphors (e.g., as pretty as a picture) in context.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Recognize and explain the meaning of common idioms, adages, and proverbs.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Demonstrate understanding of words by relating them to their opposites (antonyms) and to words with similar but not identical meanings (synonyms).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal precise actions, emotions, or states of being (e.g., quizzed, whined, stammered) and that are basic to a particular topic (e.g., wildlife, conservation, and endangered when discussing animal preservation).

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Conventions of Standard English: Explain the function of conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections in general and their function in particular sentences.

Conventions of Standard English: Form and use the perfect (e.g., I had walked; I have walked; I will have walked) verb tenses.

Conventions of Standard English: Use verb tense to convey various times, sequences, states, and conditions.

Conventions of Standard English: Recognize and correct inappropriate shifts in verb tense.*

Conventions of Standard English: Use correlative conjunctions (e.g., either/or, neither/nor).

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Conventions of Standard English: Use punctuation to separate items in a series.*

Conventions of Standard English: Use a comma to separate an introductory element from the rest of the sentence.

Conventions of Standard English: Use a comma to set off the words yes and no (e.g., Yes, thank you), to set off a tag question from the rest of the sentence (e.g., It’s true, isn’t it?), and to indicate direct address (e.g., Is that you, Steve?).

Conventions of Standard English: Use underlining, quotation marks, or italics to indicate titles of works.

Conventions of Standard English: Spell grade-appropriate words correctly, consulting references as needed.

Knowledge of Language: Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.

Knowledge of Language: Expand, combine, and reduce sentences for meaning, reader/listener interest, and style.

Knowledge of Language: Compare and contrast the varieties of English (e.g., dialects, registers) used in stories, dramas, or poems.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 5 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use context (e.g., cause/effect relationships and comparisons in text) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use common, grade-appropriate Greek and Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., photograph, photosynthesis).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Consult reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation and determine or clarify the precise meaning of key words and phrases.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Interpret figurative language, including similes and metaphors, in context.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Recognize and explain the meaning of common idioms, adages, and proverbs.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use the relationship between particular words (e.g., synonyms, antonyms, homographs) to better understand each of the words.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal contrast, addition, and other logical relationships (e.g., however, although, nevertheless, similarly, moreover, in addition).

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Conventions of Standard English: Ensure that pronouns are in the proper case (subjective, objective, possessive).

Conventions of Standard English: Use intensive pronouns (e.g., myself, ourselves).

Conventions of Standard English: Recognize and correct inappropriate shifts in pronoun number and person.*

Conventions of Standard English: Recognize and correct vague pronouns (i.e., ones with unclear or ambiguous antecedents).*

Conventions of Standard English: Recognize variations from standard English in their own and others' writing and speaking, and identify and use strategies to improve expression in conventional language.*

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Conventions of Standard English: Use punctuation (commas, parentheses, dashes) to set off nonrestrictive/parenthetical elements.*

Conventions of Standard English: Spell correctly.

Knowledge of Language: Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.

Knowledge of Language: Choose language that expresses ideas precisely and concisely, recognizing and eliminating wordiness and redundancy.*

Knowledge of Language: Maintain consistency in style and tone.*

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 6 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence or paragraph; a word’s position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use common, grade-appropriate Greek or Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., audience, auditory, audible).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Consult reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning or its part of speech.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Verify the preliminary determination of the meaning of a word or phrase (e.g., by checking the inferred meaning in context or in a dictionary).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Interpret figures of speech (e.g., personification) in context.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use the relationship between particular words (e.g., cause/effect, part/whole, item/category) to better understand each of the words.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Distinguish among the connotations (associations) of words with similar denotations (definitions) (e.g., stingy, scrimping, economical, unwasteful, thrifty).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases; gather vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Conventions of Standard English: Explain the function of phrases and clauses in general and their function in specific sentences.

Conventions of Standard English: Choose among simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences to signal differing relationships among ideas.

Conventions of Standard English: Place phrases and clauses within a sentence, recognizing and correcting misplaced and dangling modifiers.*

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Conventions of Standard English: Use a comma to separate coordinate adjectives (e.g., It was a fascinating, enjoyable movie but not He wore an old[,] green shirt).

Conventions of Standard English: Spell correctly.

Knowledge of Language: Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.

Knowledge of Language: Choose language that expresses ideas precisely and concisely, recognizing and eliminating wordiness and redundancy.*

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 7 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence or paragraph; a word’s position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use common, grade-appropriate Greek or Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., belligerent, bellicose, rebel).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Consult general and specialized reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning or its part of speech.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Verify the preliminary determination of the meaning of a word or phrase (e.g., by checking the inferred meaning in context or in a dictionary).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Interpret figures of speech (e.g., literary, biblical, and mythological allusions) in context.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use the relationship between particular words (e.g., synonym/antonym, analogy) to better understand each of the words.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Distinguish among the connotations (associations) of words with similar denotations (definitions) (e.g., refined, respectful, polite, diplomatic, condescending).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases; gather vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.

Conventions of Standard English: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Conventions of Standard English: Explain the function of verbals (gerunds, participles, infinitives) in general and their function in particular sentences.