Oregon K–6 english language arts standards

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

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

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.

Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.

Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

Acquire and use accurately a range of 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 encountering an unknown term important to comprehension or expression.

Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.

Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.

Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.

Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and communicative tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.

Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.

Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.

Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.

Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.

Print all upper- and lowercase letters.

Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs.

Form regular plural nouns orally by adding /s/ or /es/.

Understand and use question words.

Use the most frequently occurring prepositions.

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 all consonant and short-vowel phonemes.

Spell simple words phonetically.

Begins in grade 2.

Identify new meanings for familiar words and apply them accurately.

Use the most frequently occurring inflections and affixes as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word.

Sort common objects into categories to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent.

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

Identify real-life connections between words and their use.

Distinguish shades of meaning among verbs describing the same general action.

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

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.

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.

Delete syllables in compound words with two syllables.

Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words.

Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final phonemes in three-phoneme words.

Add, delete, and substitute individual phonemes in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.

Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary sound and the most frequent sounds for each consonant.

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

Read common grade-appropriate high-frequency words by sight.

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

Decode cvc words.

Read emergent texts with one-to-one correspondence 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.

With prompting and support, identify 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.

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.

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, retell familiar stories, including key details.

With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story. Identify beginning/middle/end.

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

Recognize common types of texts.

With prompting and support, identify 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.

Not applicable to literature.

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 guidance and support, follow agreed-upon rules for discussions.

Continue conversations 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Begins in grade 3.

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

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

With guidance and support, participate in shared research and writing projects.

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

Begins in grade 4.

Begins in grade 3.

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

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

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.

Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.

Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

Acquire and use accurately a range of 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 encountering an unknown term important to comprehension or expression.

Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.

Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.

Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.

Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and communicative tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.

Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.

Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.

Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.

Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.

Print all upper- and lowercase letters.

Use common, proper, and possessive nouns.

Use singular and plural nouns with matching verbs in basic sentences.

Use personal, possessive, and indefinite pronouns.

Use verbs to convey a sense of past, present, and future.

Use frequently occurring adjectives.

Use frequently occurring conjunctions.

Use determiners.

Use frequently occurring prepositions.

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

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.

Begins in grade 2.

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 and their inflectional forms.

Sort words into categories to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent.

Define words by category and by one or more key attributes.

Identify real-life connections between words and their use.

Distinguish shades of meaning among verbs differing in manner and adjectives differing in intensity 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.

Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence.

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

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

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

Segment spoken single-syllable words, including words with initial and ending blends, into their complete sequence of individual phonemes.

Add, substitute, and delete syllables in compound two-and three-syllable words.

Substitute and delete parts of blends in the initial position in one-syllable words.

Know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs.

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.

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

Read words with inflectional endings.

Recognize and 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 on successive readings.

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

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.

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

Know and use various text features 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.

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

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.

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, drawing on a wide reading of a range of text types.

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

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

Not applicable to literature.

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

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

With guidance and support, follow agreed-upon rules for discussions.

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.

Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.

Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.

Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.

Begins in grade 3.

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

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

With guidance and support, participate in shared research and writing projects.

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

Begins in grade 4.

Begins in grade 3.

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

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

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.

Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.

Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

Acquire and use accurately a range of 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 encountering an unknown term important to comprehension or expression.

Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.

Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.

Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.

Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and communicative tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.

Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.

Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.

Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.

Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes,and audiences.

Use collective nouns.

Form and use frequently occurring irregular plural nouns.

Use reflexive pronouns.

Form and use the past tense of frequently occurring irregular verbs.

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

Produce, expand, and rearrange complete simple and compound sentences.

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.

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

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.

Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root.

Use knowledge of the meaning of individual words to predict the meaning of compound words.

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

Identify real-life connections between words and their use.

Distinguish shades of meaning among closely related verbs and closely related adjectives.

Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts, including using adjectives and adverbs to describe.

There is not a grade 2 standard for this concept. Please see preceding grades for more information.

Substitute medial vowels in one-syllable words.

Substitute and delete parts of blends in the final position in one-syllable words.

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

Know spelling-sound correspondences for additional common vowel teams.

Decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels.

Decode words with grade-appropriate prefixes and suffixes.

Identify words with inconsistent but common spelling-sound correspondences.

Recognize and 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 on successive readings.

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

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 multi-paragraph text as well as the focus of specific paragraphs within the text.

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 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.

Explain how specific images contribute to and clarify a text.

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

Compare and contrast the most important points presented by two texts on the same topic.

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.

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, including identifying the characters' feelings, the plot or problem, and how it is resolved.

Describe how words and phrases 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, how the middle progresses the action, 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.

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

Not applicable to literature.

Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story 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.

Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions.

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.

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.

Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply reasons that support the opinion, use linking words to connect opinion and reasons, and provide a concluding statement or section.

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

Develop the topic with facts, definitions, and details.

Use linking words and phrases to connect ideas within categories of information.

Establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.

Use dialogue and descriptions of actions, thoughts, and feelings to develop experiences and events or show the response of characters to situations.

Use temporal words and phrases to signal event order.

Provide a sense of closure.

Begins in grade 3.

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

With guidance and support, use technology to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others.

Participate in shared research and writing projects.

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

Begins in grade 4.

Begins in grade 3.

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

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

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.

Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.

Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

Acquire and use accurately a range of 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 encountering an unknown term important to comprehension or expression.

Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.