Parent Guides to Common Core

In First Grade, your child will build important reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. Students will continue to learn the letters and sounds that make up words. They will think, talk, and write about what they read in stories, articles, and other sources of information. In their writing, students will work on putting together clear sentences on a range of topics using a growing vocabulary.

• Download the English First Grade ELA Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish First Grade ELA Parent Guide.

In Second Grade, students will continue to build important reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. They will think, talk, and write about what they read in variety of texts, such as stories, books, articles, and other sources of information including the Internet. In their writing, students will learn how to develop a topic and strengthen their skills by editing and revising.

• Download the English Second Grade ELA Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish Second Grade ELA Parent Guide.

In Third Grade, students will build important reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. They will think, talk, and write about what they read in a variety of articles, books, and other texts. In their writing, students will pay more attention to organizing information, developing ideas, and supporting these ideas with facts, details, and reasons.

• Download the English Third Grade ELA Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish Third Grade ELA Parent Guide.

In Fourth Grade, students will continue to build important reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. They will read more challenging literature, articles, and other sources of information and continue to grow their vocabulary. They will also be expected to clearly explain in detail what they have read by referring to details or information from the text. In writing, students will organize their ideas and develop topics with reasons, facts, details, and other information.

• Download the English Fourth Grade ELA Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish Fourth Grade ELA Parent Guide.

In Fifth Grade, students will continue to build important reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. They will read more challenging literature, articles, and other sources of information and continue to grow their vocabulary. Students will also be expected to understand and clearly summarize what they have learned from readings and classroom discussions, referring to specific evidence and details from the text. Students will write regularly and continue to develop their ability to gather, organize, interpret, and present information.

• Download the English Fifth Grade ELA Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish Fifth Grade ELA Parent Guide.

In Sixth Grade, students will read a range of challenging books, articles, and texts, and will be expected to demonstrate their understanding of the material by answering questions and contributing to class discussions. In writing, students will continue to work on their use of language, sentence structure, and organization of ideas. They will also be expected to integrate information from different sources and respond to challenging content through written interpretation and analysis. 

• Download the English Sixth Grade ELA Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish Sixth Grade ELA Parent Guide. 

In Seventh Grade, students will continue to develop the ability to cite relevant evidence when interpreting or analyzing a text or supporting their points in speaking and writing. Your child will also build academic vocabulary as he or she reads more complex texts, including stories, plays, historical novels, poems, and informational books and articles.

• Download the English Seventh Grade ELA Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish Seventh Grade ELA Parent Guide.

In Eighth Grade, students will read major works of fiction and nonfiction from all over the world and from different time periods. They will continue to learn how to understand what they read and evaluate an author’s assumptions and claims. They will also conduct research that will require the analysis of resources and accurate interpretation of literary and informational text.

• Download the English Eighth Grade ELA Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish Eighth Grade ELA Parent Guide.

In First Grade, students will work with whole numbers and place value— including grouping numbers into tens and ones as they learn to add and subtract up through 20. Students will also use charts, tables, and diagrams to solve problems.

• Download the English First Grade Math Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish First Grade Math Parent Guide.

In Second Grade, students will extend their understanding of place value to the hundreds place. They will use this place value understanding to solve word problems, including those involving length and other units of measure. Students will continue to work on their addition and subtraction skills, quickly and accurately adding and subtracting numbers up through 20 and also working with numbers up through 100. They will also build a foundation for understanding fractions by working with shapes and geometry.

• Download the English Second Grade Math Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish Second Grade Math Parent Guide.

In Third Grade, students will continue to build their concept of numbers, developing an understanding of fractions as numbers. They will learn the concepts behind multiplication and division and apply problem-solving skills and strategies for multiplying and dividing numbers up through 100 to solve word problems. Students will also make connections between the concept of the area of a rectangle and multiplication and addition of whole numbers.

• Download the English Third Grade Math Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish Third Grade Math Parent Guide.

In Fourth Grade, your child will use addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to solve word problems, including problems involving measurement of volume, mass, and time. Students will continue to build their understanding of fractions—creating equal fractions, comparing the size of fractions, adding and subtracting fractions, and multiplying fractions by whole numbers. They will also start to understand the relationship between fractions and decimals

• Download the English Fourth Grade Math Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish Fourth Grade Math Parent Guide.

In Fifth Grade, students will build their understanding of the place value system by working with decimals up to the hundredths place. Students will also add, subtract, and multiply fractions, including fractions with unlike denominators. They will continue to expand their geometry and measurement skills, learning the concept of volume and measuring the volume of a solid figure.

• Download the English Fifth Grade Math Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish Fifth Grade Math Parent Guide.

In Sixth Grade, your child will learn the concept of rates and ratios and use these tools to solve word problems. Students will work on quickly and accurately dividing multi-digit whole numbers and adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing multi-digit decimals. Students will extend their previous work with fractions and decimals to understand the concept of rational numbers—any number that can be made by dividing one integer by another, such as ½, 0.75, or 2. Students will also learn how to write and solve equations—mathematical statements using symbols, such as 20+x = 35—and apply these skills in solving multi-step word problems.

• Download the English Sixth Grade Math Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish Sixth Grade Math Parent Guide.

In Seventh Grade, students will further develop their understanding of rates and ratios, using tables, graphs, and equations to solve real-world problems involving proportional relationships. Students will also work on quickly and accurately solving multi-step problems involving positive and negative rational numbers—any number that can be made by dividing one integer by another, such as ½, 0.75, or 2. Additionally, students will expand their knowledge of geometry and apply the properties of operations to solve real world problems involving the measurement of multi-dimensional objects.

• Download the English Seventh Grade Math Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish Seventh Grade Math Parent Guide. 

In grade eight, students take their understanding of unit rates and proportional relationships to a new level, connecting these concepts to points on a line and ultimately using them to solve linear equations that require them to apply algebraic reasoning as well as knowledge of the properties of operations. Students will also expand their understanding of numbers beyond rational numbers to include numbers that are irrational— meaning that they cannot be written as a simple fraction, such as the square root of 2 or √2 .

• Download the English Eighth Grade Math Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish Eighth Grade Math Parent Guide.

In high school, students will develop a deep understanding of mathematical concepts and use mathematical ways of thinking to solve real-world problems. Unlike previous grades where learning objectives are organized by grade level, high school learning objectives are organized by concepts—such as algebra, functions, or geometry—that students will learn and master in various mathematics courses. These concepts build on what students learned in grade eight and move toward greater depth of knowledge and skills throughout high school.

• Download the English High School Math Parent Guide.
• Download the Spanish High School Math Parent Guide.