Colorado K–6 english language arts standards

Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (for example: listening to others and taking turns speaking about the topics and texts under discussion).

Continue a conversation through multiple exchanges.

Confirm understanding of a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media by asking and answering questions about key details and requesting clarification if something is not understood.

Ask and answer questions in order to seek help, get information, or clarify something that is not understood.

Listen with comprehension to follow two-step directions.

Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts.

Describe familiar people, places, things, and events and, with prompting and support, provide additional detail.

Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions as desired to provide additional detail.

Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly.

Sort common objects into categories (for example: shapes, foods) to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent.

Demonstrate understanding of frequently occurring verbs and adjectives by relating them to their opposites (antonyms).

Identify real-life connections between words and their use (for example: note places at school that are colorful).

Distinguish shades of meaning among verbs describing the same general action (for example: walk, march, strut, prance) by acting out the meanings.

Use new vocabulary that is directly taught through reading, speaking, and listening.

Relate new vocabulary to prior knowledge.

With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details.

With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.

Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

Recognize common types of texts (for example: storybooks, poems).

With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story.

With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (for example: what moment in a story an illustration depicts).

With prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories.

Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.

With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.

With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.

With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book.

Name the author and illustrator of a text and define the role of each in presenting the ideas or information in a text.

With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the text in which they appear (for example: what person, place, thing, or idea in the text an illustration depicts).

With prompting and support, identify the reasons an author gives to support points in a text.

With prompting and support, identify basic similarities in and differences between two texts on the same topic (for example: in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures).

Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.

Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.

Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters.

Understand that words are separated by spaces in print (concept of word).

Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.

Recognize and produce rhyming words.

Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words.

Blend and segment the onset and rime of single-syllable spoken words.

Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonant-vowel-consonant, or CVC) words.

Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.

Read text consisting of short sentences comprised of learned sight words and consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words.

Identify phonemes for letters.

Demonstrate basic knowledge of letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary or most frequent sound for each consonant.

Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.

Read common high-frequency words by sight (for example: the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).

Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.

Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.

Identify new meanings for familiar words and apply them accurately (for example: knowing duck is a bird and learning the verb to duck).

Use the most frequently occurring inflections and affixes (for example: -ed,-s, re-, un-, pre-, -ful, -less) as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word.

Identify and produce groups of words that begin with the same sound (alliteration).

Identify the initial, medial, and final phoneme (speech sound) of spoken words.

Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose opinion pieces in which they tell a reader the topic or the name of the book they are writing about and state an opinion or preference about the topic or book (for example: My favorite book is…).

With guidance and support from adults, respond to questions and suggestions from peers and add details to strengthen writing as needed.

With guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.

Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic.

With guidance and support from adults, respond to questions and suggestions from peers and add details to strengthen writing as needed.

With guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.

Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened.

With guidance and support from adults, respond to questions and suggestions from peers and add details to strengthen writing as needed.

With guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.

Print many upper- and lowercase letters.

Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs.

Form regular plural nouns orally by adding /s/ or /es/ (for example: dog, dogs; wish, wishes).

Understand and use question words (interrogatives) (for example: who, what, where, when, why, how).

Use the most frequently occurring prepositions (for example: to, from, in, out, on, off, for, of, by, with).

Produce and expand complete sentences in shared language activities.

Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun I.

Recognize and name end punctuation.

Write a letter or letters for most consonant and short-vowel sounds (phonemes).

Spell simple words phonetically, drawing on knowledge of sound-letter relationships.

Participate in shared research and writing projects (for example: explore a number of books by a favorite author and express opinions about them).

Identify a clear purpose for research or inquiry (for example: If the class is learning about trees, is my need to know more about pets related?).

Ask a specific question and gather relevant information from various sources related to that question that inform clarity of purpose and conclusions about research.

Ask primary questions of clarity, significance, relevance, and accuracy to improve quality of thinking.

Use a variety of resources to answer questions of interest through guided inquiry (for example: texts read aloud or viewed, direct observation).

Gather relevant information and check various information sources for accuracy (for example: In a class discussion focused on butterflies, students ask questions related to a butterfly and the life cycle.).

With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experience or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (for example: listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion).

Build on others' talk in conversations by responding to the comments of others through multiple exchanges.

Ask questions to clear up any confusion about the topics and texts under discussion.

Ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.

Ask and answer questions about what a speaker says in order to gather additional information or clarify something that is not understood.

Describe people, places, things, and events with relevant details, expressing ideas and feelings clearly.

Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation.

Give and follow simple two-step directions.

Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson.

Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

Make predictions about what will happen in the text and explain whether they were confirmed or not and why, providing evidence from the text.

Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses.

Explain major differences between books that tell stories and books that give information.

Identify who is telling the story at various points in a text.

Follow and replicate patterns in predictable poems.

Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.

Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories.

With prompting and support, read prose and poetry of appropriate complexity for grade 1.

Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

Identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.

Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.

Activate schema and background knowledge to construct meaning

Ask and answer questions to help determine or clarify the meaning of words and phrases in a text.

Know and use various text features (for example: headings, tables of contents, glossaries, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text.

Distinguish between information provided by pictures or other illustrations and information provided by the words in a text.

Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas.

Identify the reasons an author gives to support points in a text.

Identify basic similarities in and differences between two texts on the same topic (for example: in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures).

With prompting and support, read informational texts appropriately complex for grade 1.

Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (for example: first word, capitalization, ending punctuation).

Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words.

Orally produce single-syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including consonant blends.

Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words.

Segment spoken single-syllable words into their complete sequence of individual sounds (phonemes).

Know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs (two letters that represent one sound).

Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.

Know final -e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds.

Use knowledge that every syllable must have a vowel sound to determine the number of syllables in a printed word.

Accurately decode unknown words that follow a predictable letter/sound relationship

Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables.

Read words with inflectional endings.

Read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words.

Use onsets and rimes to create new words (for example: ip to make dip, lip, slip, ship)

Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.

Read grade-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression.

Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.

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

Use frequently occurring affixes as a clue to the meaning of a word.

Identify frequently occurring root words (for example: look) and their inflectional forms (for example: looks, looked, looking).

Identify and understand compound words.

Sort words into categories (for example: colors, clothing) to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent.

Define words by category and by one or more key attributes (for example: a duck is a bird that swims; a tiger is a large cat with stripes).

Identify real-life connections between words and their use (for example: note places at home that are cozy).

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

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 (for example: because).

Introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about.

State an opinion.

Supply a reason for the opinion.

Provide some sense of closure.

Name a topic.

Supply some facts about the topic.

Provide some sense of closure.

Recount two or more appropriately sequenced events.

Include some details regarding what happened.

Provide some sense of closure.

Print all upper- and lowercase letters.

Use common, proper, and possessive nouns.

Use singular and plural nouns with matching verbs in basic sentences (for example: He hops; We hop).

Use personal, possessive, and indefinite pronouns (for example: I, me, my; they, them, their, anyone, everything).

Use frequently occurring prepositions (for example: during, beyond, toward).

Use verbs to convey a sense of past, present, and future (for example: Yesterday I walked home; Today I walk home; Tomorrow I will walk home).

Use frequently occurring adjectives.

Use frequently occurring conjunctions (for example: and, but, or, so, because).

Use determiners (for example: articles, demonstratives).

Produce and expand complete simple and compound declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences in response to prompts.

Write complete simple sentences.

Capitalize dates and names of people.

Use end punctuation for sentences.

Use commas in dates and to separate single words in a series.

Use conventional spelling for words with common spelling patterns and for frequently occurring irregular words.

Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness and spelling conventions.

With guidance and support from adults, focus on a topic, respond to questions and suggestions from peers, and add details to strengthen writing as needed.

With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.

Participate in shared research and writing projects. For example: explore a number of "how-to" books on a given topic and use them to write a sequence of instructions.

Write or dictate questions for inquiry that arise during instruction.

With peers, use a variety of resources (for example: direct observation, trade books, texts read aloud or viewed) to answer questions of interest through guided inquiry.

Use text features (for example: titles, illustrations, headings, bold type) to locate, interpret, and use information.

Identify a clear and significant purpose for research. (for example: Is my purpose for researching frogs clear and is it important to understanding more about mammals?)

With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (for example: gaining the floor in respectful ways, listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion).

Build on others' talk in conversations by linking their comments to the remarks of others.

Ask for clarification and further explanation as needed about the topics and texts under discussion.

Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.

Ask and answer questions about what a speaker says in order to clarify comprehension, gather additional information, or deepen understanding of a topic or issue

Tell a story or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking audibly in coherent sentences.

Contribute knowledge to a small group or class discussion to develop a topic.

Maintain focus on the topic.

Create audio recordings of stories or poems; add drawings or other visual displays to stories or recounts of experiences when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation in order to provide requested detail or clarification.

Use content-specific vocabulary to ask questions and provide information.

Demonstrate use of self-monitoring comprehension strategies: rereading, checking context clues, predicting, questioning, clarifying, activating schema/background knowledge to construct meaning and draw inferences.

Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.

Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.

Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.

Describe how words and phrases (for example: regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song.

Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.

Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud.

Identify how word choice (for example: sensory details, figurative language) enhances meaning in poetry.

Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.

Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story (for example: Cinderella stories) by different authors or from different cultures.

By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories and poetry, in the grades 2-3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.

Identify the main topic of a multiparagraph text as well as the focus of specific paragraphs within the text.

Summarize the main idea using relevant and significant details in a variety of texts.

Describe the connection between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text.

Determine the meaning of words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 2 topic or subject area.

Know and use various text features (for example: captions, bold print, subheadings, glossaries, indexes, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text efficiently.

Identify the main purpose of a text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe.

Read text to perform a specific task such as follow a recipe or play a game.

Explain how specific images (for example: a diagram showing how a machine works) contribute to and clarify a text.

Describe how reasons support specific points the author makes in a text.

Adjust reading rate according to type of text and purpose for reading.

By the end of year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, in the grades 2–3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

Distinguish long and short vowels when reading regularly spelled one syllable words.

Know spelling-sound correspondences for additional common vowel teams.

Read multisyllabic words accurately and fluently.

Decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels.

Decode words with common prefixes and suffixes.

Identify words with inconsistent but common spelling-sound correspondences.

Read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words.

Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.

Read grade-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression.

Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.

Read grade-level text accurately and fluently, attending to phrasing, intonation, and punctuation.

Compare formal and informal uses of English.

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

Determine the meaning of the new word formed when a known prefix is added to a known word (for example: happy/unhappy, tell/retell).

Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root (for example: addition, additional).

Use knowledge of the meaning of individual words to predict the meaning of compound words (for example: birdhouse, lighthouse, housefly; bookshelf, notebook, bookmark).

Create new words by combining base words with affixes to connect known words to new words.

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

Identify real-life connections between words and their use (for example: describe foods that are spicy or juicy).

Distinguish shades of meaning among closely related verbs (for example: toss, throw, hurl) and closely related adjectives (for example: thin, slender, skinny, scrawny).

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

Determine which strategies should be used to decode multisyllabic words

Introduce the topic or book they are writing about.

State an opinion.

Supply reasons that support the opinion.

Use linking words (for example: because, and, also) to connect opinion and reasons.

Provide a concluding statement or section.

Introduce a topic.

Use facts and definitions to develop points, including relevant details when writing to questions about texts.

Provide a concluding statement or section.

Write letters and "how-to's" (for example: procedures, directions, recipes) that follow a logical order and appropriate format.

Organize informational texts using main ideas and specific supporting details.

Apply appropriate transition words to writing.

Writers use technology to support the writing process.

Include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings.

Use temporal words to signal event order.

Provide a sense of closure.

Write simple, descriptive poems.

Write with precise nouns, active verbs, and descriptive adjectives.

Apply knowledge about structure and craft gained from mentor text to narrative writing.

Develop characters both internally (thoughts and feelings) and externally (physical features, expressions, clothing).

Use collective nouns (for example: group).

Use reflexive pronouns (for example: myself, ourselves).

Form and use the past tense of frequently occurring irregular verbs (for example: sat, hid, told).

Use adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified.

Apply accurate subject-verb agreement while writing.

Produce, expand, and rearrange complete simple and compound sentences (for example: The boy watched the movie; The little boy watched the movie; The action movie was watched by the little boy).

Vary sentence beginnings.

Spell high-frequency words correctly.

Capitalize holidays, product names, and geographic names.

Use commas in greetings and closings of letters.

Use an apostrophe to form contractions and frequently occurring possessives.

Generalize learned spelling patterns when writing words (for example: cage → badge; boy → boil).

Consult reference materials, including beginning dictionaries, as needed to check and correct spellings.

With guidance and support from adults and peers, focus on a topic and strengthen writing as needed by revising and editing.

With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.

Participate in shared research and writing projects. For example: read a number of books on a single topic to produce a report; record science observations.

Identify a variety of resources and the information they might contain (for example: dictionary, trade book, library databases, internet web page).

Identify a specific question and gather information for purposeful investigation and inquiry.

Use text features to locate and interpret information. For example: table of contents, illustrations, diagrams, headings and bold type.

Use a variety of multimedia sources to answer questions of interest.

Ask primary questions of depth and breadth.

Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

Come to discussions prepared, having read or studied required material; explicitly draw on that preparation and other information known about the topic to explore ideas under discussion.

Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (for example: gaining the floor in respectful ways, listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion).

Ask questions to check understanding of information presented, stay on topic, and link their comments to the remarks of others.

Explain their own ideas and understanding in light of the discussion.

Determine the main ideas and supporting details of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

Ask and answer questions about information from a speaker, offering appropriate elaboration and detail.

Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.

Distinguish different levels of formality.

Speak clearly, using appropriate volume and pitch for the purpose and audience.

Select and organize ideas sequentially or around major points of information that relate to the formality of the audience.

Create engaging audio recordings of stories or poems that demonstrate fluid reading at an understandable pace; add visual displays when appropriate to emphasize or enhance certain facts or details.

Speak in complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation in order to provide requested detail or clarification.

Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

Use a variety of comprehension strategies to interpret text (attending, searching, predicting, checking, and self-correcting).

Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text.

Summarize central ideas and important details from a text.

Describe and draw inferences about the elements of plot, character, and setting in literary pieces, poems, and plays.

Describe characters in a story (for example: their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.

Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language.

Use signal words (such as before, after, next) and text structure (narrative, chronology) to determine the sequence of major events

Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections.

Distinguish their own point of view from that of the narrator or those of the characters.

Explain how specific aspects of a text's illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by the words in a story (for example: create mood, emphasize aspects of a character or setting).

Compare and contrast the themes, settings, and plots of stories written by the same author about the same or similar characters (for example: in books from a series).

By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the grades 2-3 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

Read grade level text accurately and fluently, attending to phrasing, intonation, and punctuation.

Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea.

Identify a main topic of a multi-paragraph text as well as the focus of specific paragraphs within the text

Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.

Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 3 topic or subject area.

Use text features and search tools (for example: key words, sidebars, hyperlinks) to locate information relevant to a given topic efficiently.

Distinguish their own point of view from that of the author of a text.

Use semantic cues and signal words (for example: because and although) to identify cause/effect and compare/contrast relationships.

Use information gained from illustrations (for example: maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (for example: where, when, why, and how key events occur).

Describe the logical connection between particular sentences and paragraphs in a text (for example: comparison, cause/effect, first/second/third in a sequence).

Compare and contrast the most important points and key details presented in two texts on the same topic.

By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 2–3 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

Identify and know the meaning of the most common prefixes and derivational suffixes.

Decode words with common Latin suffixes.

Decode multisyllable words.

Read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words.

Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.

Read grade-level prose and poetry orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression.

Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.

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

Determine the meaning of the new word formed when a known affix is added to a known word (for example: agreeable/disagreeable, comfortable/uncomfortable, care/careless, heat/preheat).

Use knowledge of word relationships to identify antonyms or synonyms to clarify meaning.

Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root (for example: company, companion).

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

Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 3 topic or subject area.

Distinguish the literal and nonliteral meanings of words and phrases in context (for example: take steps).

Identify real-life connections between words and their use (for example: describe people who are friendly or helpful).

Distinguish shades of meaning among related words that describe states of mind or degrees of certainty (for example: knew, believed, suspected, heard, wondered).

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

Introduce the topic or text they are writing about, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure that includes reasons.

Provide reasons that support the opinion.

Use linking words and phrases (for example: because, therefore, since, for example) to connect opinion and reasons.

Provide a concluding statement or section.

Introduce a topic and group related information together; include illustrations when useful to aiding comprehension.

Develop the topic with facts, definitions, and details.

Use linking words and phrases (for example: also, another, and, more, but) to connect ideas within categories of information.