Unit 4 — Better Together
Description
Students explore cooperation, sportsmanship, and working together through literature and informational texts. They ask and answer questions about key details, retell stories, and use illustrations to understand meaning. Writing focuses on informative/explanatory text in procedural form. Phonics instruction includes consonant digraphs ch, th, and wh with initial blends. Students learn to identify story themes and recognize relationships between text and images. The unit emphasizes using context clues, compound words, and prepositions to build sentence complexity.
Essential Questions
- Why is it important to do my best and get along with others?
Learning Objectives
- Ask and answer questions about key details in texts.
- Retell stories including key details and central messages.
- Use illustrations and details to describe characters, settings, and events.
- Identify main topics and retell key details of informational texts.
- Describe relationships between individuals, events, ideas, and information.
- Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills.
- Write informative texts naming a topic and supplying facts.
- Use frequently occurring prepositions.
- Capitalize dates and names of people.
- Use frequently occurring affixes and inflections as word meaning clues.
Suggested Texts
- Baseball Hour — informational text (week 1)
- Good Sports — opinion writing (week 1)
- Goal! — informational text (week 1)
- Pelé, King of Soccer — biography (week 2)
- Get Up and Go! — informational text (week 2)
- Brontorina — fantasy (week 2)
- The Great Ball Game — folktale (week 3)
- If You Plant a Seed — fantasy (week 3)
- Color Your World with Kindness — video (week 3)
Supplemental Resources
- Printed word lists for consonant digraphs ch, th, wh and initial blends with s
- Graphic organizers for procedural text with steps in sequence
- Index cards for compound word building activities
- Sentence strips for building sentences with prepositions
- Chart paper for recording teamwork and cooperation examples from texts
Language
Reading: Informational Text
Reading: Literature
Writing
Students examine character traits and personal qualities in Unit 4 through literature and discussions about sportsmanship, teamwork, and cooperation. They make connections between literary themes and real-world applications of respect and kindness in communities.
Formative Assessments
- Ask and answer questions about cooperation and teamwork in texts
- Response to text: write game rules and instructions
- Story structure activities for folktales and realistic fiction
- Teacher observation of small group guided reading
- Writing conferences during procedural text drafting
Summative Assessment
End of Unit Assessment; Informational/explanatory writing response in procedural form
Benchmark Assessment
— not configured —
Alternative Assessment
Students may answer questions about key details and central messages through oral responses, pointing to illustrations, or drawing pictures to show understanding instead of writing. Visual supports such as story maps or picture sequences may be provided to organize information before retelling.
IEP (Individualized Education Program)
During phonics instruction on digraphs and blends, provide visual sound-spelling cards and allow students to respond orally or by pointing rather than writing independently. When retelling stories or identifying themes around cooperation, offer a picture-supported story sequence strip to scaffold their thinking before sharing aloud or dictating a response. For the procedural writing task, students may dictate their steps to a teacher or aide, use a simple graphic organizer with labeled sections, and receive sentence frames to support informative text structure. Extended time and frequent check-ins during writing conferences will help students maintain focus and demonstrate understanding of key concepts.
Section 504
Ensure preferential seating during read-aloud and shared reading activities to minimize distraction and support focus on illustrations and key details. Provide printed copies of any directions or procedural writing prompts rather than requiring students to copy from the board, and allow extended time on the end-of-unit writing assessment. A visual timer during independent work periods can help students manage transitions between reading and writing tasks.
ELL / MLL
Introduce the unit's key vocabulary around cooperation, teamwork, and procedural language using picture-supported word cards, and preview important words before reading each text. Use illustrations prominently when building comprehension of story events and characters, and invite students to explain their understanding through gestures, drawings, or their home language before transitioning to an English oral response. For the procedural writing task, provide a visual model of step-by-step format and simplified sentence frames such as 'First… Next… Last…' to support students in organizing and expressing their ideas in writing.
At Risk (RTI)
Begin comprehension work by connecting the themes of cooperation and teamwork to students' own classroom or playground experiences to activate prior knowledge and build engagement. Support retelling and question-answering with visual story maps or picture-sequence cards that reduce the cognitive load of holding all story details in memory at once. For phonics work with digraphs and initial blends, provide additional hands-on practice with sound-sorting or word-building activities before expecting students to apply these skills in connected reading, and offer simpler procedural writing prompts with a clear model to help students feel confident entering the task.
Gifted & Talented
Invite students to analyze how the theme of cooperation is developed differently across a folktale and an informational text, considering how the author's purpose and text structure shape the message. For the procedural writing task, encourage students to go beyond listing basic steps by incorporating precise language, transitional phrases, and an explanation of why each step matters — raising the sophistication of their informative writing. Students who demonstrate strong command of digraphs and blends may apply that phonics knowledge in independent word study, such as exploring how compound words in the unit connect to the theme of 'coming together.'