Language Arts/English Curriculum Frameworks - Albemarle County ...

6 th Grade – Communications in Language and Literature
Course Description:
Middle school students explore the language arts through five interdisciplinary concepts (systems, change
and continuity, communication, aesthetics, and universality) and the correlating language arts concepts,
with emphasis on systems. A focus on systems reinforces students’ developmental processes in word
study and fluency and their continued growth as readers and writers. Each grade also uses a second
concept as a focusing lens through which students gain deeper understanding of elements of language and
literature. Additionally, courses are designed to incorporate a balanced literacy diet that includes the
components of fluency, word study, comprehension, and writing.
Sixth-grade students experience English language arts through exploration of communication and author’s
craft. This emphasis allows students to study those structures (systems) and styles (communication) that
authors use to communicate ideas about the world. As such, students read extensively from a variety of
genres, including fiction, narrative nonfiction, nonfiction, and poetry and transfer what they learn about
those genres to their own writing and speaking. Students write for a variety of audiences and purposes,
using narrative and expository forms. Additional emphasis is placed on continuing to build comprehension
strategies, understanding Latin roots for vocabulary development, and using correct punctuation and
grammar.
Early Proficient State of Reading:
The reading skill of early proficient readers allows them to tackle more demanding texts. Silent reading is
fluent when the vocabulary and concept load are within the student’s range. Early proficient readers are
expanding their vocabulary knowledge and their ability to use strategies to make meaning from text. They
also continue to develop fluency, chunking phrases and reading with expression. As they develop higher
level cognitive abilities, they gain in ability to understand more complex reading materials. It is vocabulary
and concept development, rather than the ability to decode words, that determines a student’s
advancement to the early proficient reading stage.
Books appropriate for students in this stage contain more difficult vocabulary and concepts, include
chapters that are complete in themselves, and feature more complex characters and situations of interest
to pre-adolescents and adolescents.
Stages of Writing:
Refer to ASPIRE (appendix B).
© Albemarle County Public Schools, May 2006 36