Grade 1 · Level 1 · Literacy acquisition
ELA 1
The code opens; the first complete sentence.
Meridian Note
Decoding begins its long climb at KS-4 — regularly spelled one- and two-syllable words produced on demand, with daily blending sprints and pseudoword checks, because a pseudoword cannot be memorized and so verifies the tool itself. The complete sentence is fixed at KS-4 the same year: the atom of everything the meridian will ever ask a writer to produce. Writing is one opinion, one reason, one closure — form at exposure depth while the code does the real work.
The Fix Registry
Skills of This Course
Every skill is pinned to the meridian by fix notation — where along the scale, and at what depth. The highlighted state is this course's target: the state an honest instrument must certify before the skill counts as covered here.
| Skill | Fixes | Target at Level 1 |
|---|---|---|
| Decoding & word attack | 1-KS414-KS627-KS7 | KS-4Recalled |
| Sentence control & core conventions | 1-KS427-KS760-KS10 | KS-4Recalled |
| Blending & segmenting sounds | 1-KS414-KS6 | KS-4Recalled |
| High-frequency sight words | 1-KS314-KS5 | KS-3Recognized |
| Retelling & the central message | 1-KS314-KS4 | KS-3Recognized |
| First opinion & story writing | 1-KS327-KS4 | KS-3Recognized |
Course of Instruction
Units
Unit 1.Sounds Make Words
8 practice itemsWords are made of little sounds. When you push the sounds together, you make a word. That is called blending. When you pull a word apart into its sounds, that is called segmenting. This unit makes you a sound builder — and a sound breaker.
MatchingMultiple choiceFill in the blankMultiple choice (misconception distractors)Short answer
Unit 2.Two-Letter Sounds and the Magic E
16 practice itemsSome letters work in teams. In this unit you meet the two-letter sounds — sh, ch, th, wh, ck — and the sneakiest letter of all: the silent e. It makes no sound, but it changes everything.
MatchingMultiple choiceFill in the blankMultiple choice (misconception distractors)Short answer
Unit 3.Vowel Teams and Bigger Words
16 practice itemsVowels like to work in teams too. In this unit you meet the vowel teams — ai, ea, oa, ee — and learn a trick for reading BIG words: cut them into parts. After this unit, long words will not scare you.
MatchingMultiple choiceFill in the blankMultiple choice (misconception distractors)Short answer
Unit 4.The Complete Sentence
13 practice itemsA sentence is a whole idea. It tells you WHO and it tells you WHAT HAPPENED. In this unit you learn the parts every sentence must have: a capital letter at the start, a naming part, a telling part, and an end mark. This is the first brick of all the writing you will ever do.
MatchingMultiple choiceFill in the blankMultiple choice (misconception distractors)Short answer
Unit 5.Snap Words and Story Retelling
15 practice itemsSome words do not play by the sound-it-out rules — words like said, of, and was. You just have to know them in a snap. And once you can read stories, you can learn to retell them: what happened first, next, and last, and what the story is really teaching. This unit does both.
MatchingMultiple choiceFill in the blankShort answer
Unit 6.Your First Writing: Opinions and Stories
8 practice itemsNow that you can build a sentence, you can build with sentences! In this unit you write two kinds of pieces: an opinion — what you think and WHY — and a little story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Multiple choiceMatchingFill in the blankShort answer