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Language Arts and Digital K-12 Online Lessons

Article by Chris Robertson

Many early readers report that their favorite childhood books included a book that most adults never consider when thinking about kids reading - a language arts textbook. Language arts, once separated into English Grammar and English Literature, teaches valuable skills that go far beyond "how to read." If you're teaching children at home, one of the most valuable things you can provide for them is access to a complete curriculum. The easiest way to do that is to give them access to a site that provides digital K-12 online lessons in language arts.

Why a Complete K-12 Curriculum Is Important

Skills build upon each other, lesson after lesson and year after year. When you choose a curriculum rather than simply picking up random textbooks, you're setting up a structure for learning these skills in the order that makes the most sense. It's far easier for a student to understand poetic concepts such as alliteration, for example, if they've already been exposed to silly songs and sounds.

Language textbooks also help students develop critical thinking and reading comprehension skills. Guided reading and follow-up questions are important aspects of teaching children to look for "reading clues" that help them sequence events, understand themes and recognize logical arguments and fallacies.

Important Elements Year by Year

One way to provide language arts enrichment for your child is to subscribe to a website that offers full access to an online language arts curriculum. If you're choosing an online textbook for language arts, common core standards for each grade level can help you choose the right digital K-12 online lessons for your child's reading and comprehension level. These core competencies are a major part of the curriculum for each school year.

Kindergarten readers are developing basic reading skills. The lessons should include stories written with a heavy concentration of sight words, as well as phonics lessons. Simple stories help teach event sequencing. Creative writing focuses as much on handwriting as on content.

First grade language arts curriculum adds creative writing prompts while expanding the students' understanding of core concepts such as sentence structure, event sequencing, phonics, word formation and spelling.

Second graders benefit from expanded vocabulary and spelling lists. The stories are more complex and start to introduce conflicts and character traits. Creative writing prompts encourage children to start thinking critically about what they've read.

By fourth grade, the textbooks encourage students to write in paragraphs and develop ideas throughout their prompts. Grammar and sentence structure become more important, and children may be introduced to excerpts from classic books.

In sixth through eighth grade language arts, children deepen their understanding of literature and writing construction through introduction to classic literature. The writing assignments should pull from a variety of personally relevant topics and writing responses.

Providing your child with digital K-12 online lessons and language arts textbooks gives him the skills he'll need to tackle every other subject, and instills core competencies that will serve him for the rest of his life.