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A+LSCURRICULUM
GUIDE
The English Language - Language Skills IV |
The A+dvanced Learning System® Language curriculum is a comprehensive, completely integrated language skills curriculum for grade levels 1-9. This program directs students from beginning language skills to more advanced in a title series that encompasses three Grammar & Usage titles and seven Language Skills titles. Language Skills titles have extensive tutorial and instructional voice support.
The seven Language Skills titles teach word usage, spelling, usage in context, pronunciation, and alphabetizing for over 4,000 of the most commonly-used words in the English language. These titles make use of complete voice instruction for four basic learning techniques, the Eight-Step Method, Proofreading, Flash Cards, and Alphabetizing, to illustrate and drive home, and assess mastery of, these skills. In addition, the Language Skills titles all contain Essay modules that require students to demonstrate their language skills in curriculum- and community-related writing exercises. Language Skills titles each contain between 68 and 72 lessons. Each lesson works with a word list that exemplifies a generalization, or learning objective for the student to master.
| LESSON # | LESSON TITLE | GENERALIZATION TAUGHT | WORD LIST | ESSAY |
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Short Vowels 1 | A short vowel sound is usually spelled with one vowel letter followed by one or more consonant letters as in hat and nest. | contest, public, check, lock, *built, trash, pump, struck, bump, rush | |
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Short Vowels 2 | A short vowel sound is usually spelled with one vowel letter followed by one or more consonant letters as in hat and nest | swam pond, stiff, fact, theft, quit, dull, grand, drank, trust | |
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Short Vowels 3 | A short vowel sound may be spelled with one or more vowel letters that are not the usual spelling of the sound as in bread and build. | pleasant, meant, enough, measure, twelve, tough, treasure, feathers, cousin, among | |
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Short Vowels 4 | A short vowel sound may be spelled with one or more vowel letters that are not the usual spelling of the sound as in bread and build. | judge, breath, wealthy, weapons, against, leather, onions, stomach, shove, spread | |
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Long /a/ Sound with Different Spellings 1 | The long vowel sound /a/ may be spelled ‘a-e,’ ‘ai,’ ‘ey,’ or ‘eigh’ as in cake, tail, they, and eight. | contains, obey, mistake, neighbor, *ache, shake, *straight, wake, eight, shade |
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Long /a/ Sound with Different Spellings 2 | The long vowel sound /a/ may be spelled ‘a-e,’ ‘ai,’ or ‘a’ at the end of a syllable as in cake, tail, and navy. | grain, *past, laid, hate, date, bacon, navy, chase, acres, apron |
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Long /e/ Sound with Different Spellings 1 | The long vowel sound /e/ may be spelled ‘ea,’ ‘ee,’ ‘ie,’ or ‘ei’ as in mean, deep, niece, and either. | believe, indeed, treat, agree, disease, heat, season, freeze, received, scream | |
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Long /e/ Sound with Different Spellings 2 | The long vowel sound /e/ may be spelled ‘ea,’ ‘ee,’ ‘ie,’ or ‘ei’ as in mean, deep, niece, and either. | speed, sixteen, either, neither, niece, sweep, *police, speech, cream, *machine |
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Long /i/ Sound with Different Spellings 1 | The long vowel sound /i/ may be spelled ‘i-e,’ ‘i’ at the end of a syllable, or ‘igh’ as in kite, pilot, and high. | quite, *type, surprise, smile, pioneer, alive, pirate, pilot, tight, lightning |
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Long /i/ Sound with Different Spellings 2 | The long vowel sound /i/ may be spelled ‘i-e,’ ‘i’ at the end of a syllable, or ‘igh’ as in kite, pilot, and high. | *height, stripes, diamond, guide, dime, polite, bicycle, climate, quiet, silent | |
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Long /o/ Sound with Different Spellings 1 | The long vowel sound /o/ may be spelled ‘o-e,’ ‘oa,’ ‘ow,’ or ‘o’ at the end of a syllable as in vote, coat, snow, and poem. | joke, motor, grocery, *shoulder, coconut, roast, throat, toast, shadow, polar | |
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Long /o/ Sound with Different Spellings 2 | The long vowel sound /o/ may be spelled ‘o-e,’ ‘oa,’ ‘ow,’ or ‘o’ at the end of a syllable as in vote, coat, snow, and poem. | pillow, poem, soda, oats, hollow, clover, odor, chose, coach, *control | |
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Homophones 1 | Homophones are words which sound alike, but have different spellings and meanings such as one and won. | breaks, brakes, too, to, night, knight, passed past, peace, piece | |
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Homophones 2 | Homophones are words which sound alike, but have different spellings and meanings such as one and won. | loan, lone, waist, waste, steel, steal, heel, heal, capital, capitol |
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Schwa Sound | The schwa sound may be spelled with a single vowel letter as in attend. | attend, distance, sentence, cafeteria, different, salad, umbrella, elephant, student, method | |
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The /’n/ Sound | The sound /’n/ or /n/ in a final unstressed syllable may be spelled ‘on,’ ‘en,’ ‘an,’ or ‘ain’ as in button, oven, organ, or curtain. | certain, button, dozen, organ, prison, ribbon, oven, million, curtain, *medicine |
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The /’l/ Sound 1 | The sound /’l/ or /l/ at the end of a word with more than one syllable may be spelled ‘le,’ ‘al,’ ‘el,’ or ‘il’ as in uncle, central, camel, and pencil. | hospital, pedal, level, rifles, bubbles, principal, special, ankle, barrel, tunnel | |
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The /’l/ Sound 2 | The sound /’l/ or /l/ at the end of a word with more than one syllable may be spelled ‘le,’ ‘al,’ ‘el,’ or ‘il’ as in uncle, central, camel, and pencil. | saddle, model, stable, handle, several, settle, articles, title, tonsils, gentle |
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The /’r/ Sound 1 | The sound /’r/ may be spelled ‘er,’ ‘ar,’ or ‘or,’ as in butter, dollar, and doctor. | together, tractor, member, grammar, interest, remember, proper, chapter, manners, shelter | |
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The /’r/ Sound 2 | The sound /’r/ may be spelled ‘er,’ ‘ar,’ or ‘or,’ as in butter, dollar, and doctor. | farther, thunder, checkers, visitor, officer, calendar, whether, regular, further, manager | |
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Contractions 1 | Two words can be put together and shortened with an apostrophe to make a contraction such as didn’t for did not. | you’ve, he’d, doesn’t, they’ve, they’ll, they’re, let’s, here’s, she’s, shouldn’t |
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Contractions 2 | Two words can be put together and shortened with an apostrophe to make a contraction such as didn’t for did not. | we’ve, you’re, what’s, you’d, who’s, there’s, don’t, weren’t, he’s, she’ll | |
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Plural Possessives 1 | Possessives of singular nouns are formed by adding ‘s as in girl’s. Possessives of plural nouns that end in ‘s’ are formed by adding an apostrophe as in girls’. | girls’, girl’s , brothers’, teacher’s, teachers’, father’s, boy’s, boys’, sister’s, dog’s |
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Plural Possessives 2 | Possessives of singular nouns are formed by adding ‘s as in girl’s. Possessives of plural nouns that end in ‘s’ are formed by adding an apostrophe as in girls’. Possessives of other plural nouns are formed by adding ‘s as in men’s. | women’s, mother’s, men’s, man’s, woman’s, children’s, parents’, parent’s, friends’, aunt’s | |
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Compound Words 1 | Two or more words can be put together to make a compound word such as afternoon. | everywhere, chalkboard, themselves, motorcycle, screwdriver, watermelon, flagpole, percent, oatmeal, whatever | |
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Compound Words 2 | Two or more words can be put together to make a compound word which may be spelled as one word, as two words joined by a hyphen, or as two separate words used together such as afternoon, good-by, and high school. | highway, horseback, grasshopper, sunshine, goldfish, suitcase, good-by, mailbox, bluebird, all right | |
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Consonant Blends 1 | A consonant blend is spelled with two or more consonant letters such as ‘fl’ in flag. Some consonant sounds may be spelled with more than one letter such as ‘ch’ in chair. | frame, project, closet, swing, thus, drill, whale, splash, crack, brush | |
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Consonant Blends 2 | A consonant blend is spelled with two or more consonant letters such as ‘fl’ in flag. Some consonant sounds may be spelled with more than one letter such as ‘ch’ in chair. | scratch, trunk, shook, cloth, groceries, feast, blind, statue, chocolate, promise | |
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The /ou/ Sound 1 | The vowel sound /ou/ may be spelled ‘ou’ or ‘ow’ as in found and cow. | announce, amount, outfit, trousers, aloud, surrounded, fountain, council, crown, bow | |
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The /ou/ Sound 2 | The vowel sound /ou/ may be spelled ‘ou’ or ‘ow’ as in found and cow. | bound, shouted, drowned, couch, plow, ounce, noun, trout, sour, shower | |
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The /oi/ Sound 1 | The vowel sound ‘oi’ may be spelled ‘oi’ or ‘oy’ as in oil and joy. | oyster, moist, poison, voyage, destroy, join, loyal, foil, boil, broil | |
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The /oi/ Sound 2 | The vowel sound ‘oi’ may be spelled ‘oi’ or ‘oy’ as in oil and joy. | spoil, choice, avoid, appoint, disappointed, royal, coin, toil, employ, annoy |
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The /ôô/ Sound 1 | The vowel sound /ôô/ may be spelled ‘oo,’ ‘u-e,’ ‘ew,’ ‘u,’ ‘o,’ ‘ou,’ or ‘ue’ as in soon, rule, new, truth, do, you, and blue. | duty, salute, truth, ruler, cruel, fool, jewel, spoon, rooster, choose | |
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The /ôô/ Sound 2 | The vowel sound /ôô/ may be spelled ‘oo,’ ‘u-e,’ ‘ew,’ ‘u,’ ‘o,’ ‘ou,’ or ‘ue’ as in soon, rule, new, truth, do, you, and blue. | stool, crew, tools, stew, soup, chew, route, avenue, lose, whose | |
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The /ô/ Sound with Different Spellings 1 | The vowel sound /ô/ may be spelled ‘a,’ ‘au,’ ‘aw,’ ‘o,’ or ‘ou’ as in all and water, because, saw, dog, and thought. | daughter, cough, drawn, fault, dawn, ought, crawled, haunted, saucer, false | |
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The /ô/ Sound with Different Spellings 2 | The vowel sound /ô/ may be spelled ‘a,’ ‘au,’ ‘aw,’ ‘o,’ or ‘ou’ as in all and water, because, saw, dog, and thought. | naughty, fallen, caught, laundry, brought, author, cost, walnut, lawn, brought | |
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Suffixes 1 | The suffix ‘ed’ and the suffix ‘ing’ may be added to many words to help show time as in acted and acting. | interesting, blooming, belonged, banking, fastened, explaining, bothering, appeared, frightened, bending |
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Suffixes 2 | The suffix ‘ed’ and the suffix ‘ing’ may be added to many words to help show time as in acted and acting. | barked, attacked melted, gaining, marched, invented, offered, expected, discovering, rewarding | |
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Plurals 1 | The suffix ‘s’ and ‘es’ may be added to many nouns to form plurals as in legs and matches. The suffix ‘es’ is usually added to words that end with /ch/, /s/, or /sh/ sounds. | costumes, witches, tears, kisses, jacks, bees, wings, taxes, blossoms, bricks |
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Plurals 2 | The suffix ‘s’ and ‘es’ may be added to many nouns to form plurals as in legs and matches. The suffix ‘es’ is usually added to words that end with /ch/, /s/, or /sh/ sounds. | benches, weeds, products, dresses, ashes, sheets, sandwiches, pears, peaches, instruments | |
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Final ‘y’ 1 | The long vowel sound /e/ at the end of a word with more than one syllable is often spelled ‘y’ as in body. | assembly, beauty, library, geography, memory, empty, worry, forty, property, slippery | |
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Final ‘y’ 2 | The long vowel sound /e/ at the end of a word with more than one syllable is often spelled ‘y’ as in body. | ugly, jelly, *chimney, angry, safety, factory, industry, jolly, crazy, February | |
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The ‘ed’ Ending 1 | If a word ends with a consonant letter and ‘y,’ the ‘y’ is usually changed to ‘i’ before ‘es’ or ‘ed’ is added as in dried. If a vowel letter comes before final ‘y,’ the ‘y’ is not changed as in stayed. | mysteries, satisfied, strawberries, dried, applied, fried, turkeys, parties, bakeries, cavities |
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The ‘ed’ Ending 2 | If a word ends with a consonant letter and ‘y,’ the ‘y’ is usually changed to ‘i’ before ‘es’ or ‘ed’ is added as in dried. If a vowel letter comes before final ‘y,’ the ‘y’ is not changed as in stayed. | worried, stayed, occupied factories, ponies, daisies, keys, dictionaries, multiplied, flies | |
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Suffixes 3 | If a word ends with silent ‘e,’ the ‘e’ is usually dropped before a suffix beginning with a vowel letter is added as in coming. | stumbled, shaped, decided, prepared, including, breathing, living, biting, happened, noticed | |
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Suffixes 4 | If a word ends with silent ‘e,’ the ‘e’ is usually dropped before a suffix beginning with a vowel letter is added as in coming. | forced, trading, appreciated, continued, practicing, dividing, baked, exciting, manufacturing, using |
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Suffixes 5 | If a word or final stressed syllable ends with a single consonant following a single vowel, the consonant is doubled before ‘y’ or a suffix beginning with a vowel is added as in getting. | sunny, controlled, flatten, jogging, foggy, batter, wedding, whipping, trimmed, muddy | |
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Suffixes 6 | If a word or final stressed syllable ends with a single consonant following a single vowel, the consonant is doubled before ‘y’ or a suffix beginning with a vowel is added as in getting. | spinning, humming, robbers, drummer, permitted, admitted, dipped, zipper, forgotten, dragging | |
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Comparisons 1 | The suffixes ‘er’ and ‘est’ may be added to some adjectives to show comparison as in darker and darkest. | busiest, busier, biggest, bigger, *best, cheaper, cheapest, closer, closest, drier |
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Comparisons 2 | The suffixes ‘er’ and ‘est’ may be added to some adjectives to show comparison as in darker and darkest. | driest, funniest, funnier, angrier, letter, angriest, *worse, *worst, easier, easiest | |
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Suffixes 7 | The suffixes ‘ly,’ ‘ful,’ and ‘ion’ may be added to some words as in slowly, careful, and protection. | cheerful, graceful, quietly, harmful, *daily, education, skillful, protection, usually, swiftly | |
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Suffixes 8 | The suffixes ‘ly,’ ‘ful,’ and ‘ion’ may be added to some words as in slowly, careful, and protection. | safely, painful, population, rapidly, carefully, useful, pollution, immediately, direction, sincerely | |
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The /’r/ Sound with Different Spellings 1 | The sound /’r/ may be spelled ‘er,’ ‘ur,’ ‘ir,’ or ‘ear’ as in person, burn, dirt, word, and earth. | *journey, curls, alert, curve, sturdy, disturb, search, turnips, germs, deserve | |
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The /’r/ Sound with Different Spellings 2 | The sound /’r/ may be spelled ‘er,’ ‘ur,’ ‘ir,’ or ‘ear’ as in person, burn, dirt, word, and earth. | burst, firm, current, clerk, verb, service, herd, verse, purse, curb | |
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The /ôr/ Sound with Different Spellings 1 | The sound /ôr/ may be spelled ‘or,’ ‘ar,’ ‘ore,’ ‘our,’ or ‘oar’ as in born, war, wore, four, and board. | northern, important, coarse, worn, border, torn, *toward, warn, course, foreign | |
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The /ôr/ Sound with Different Spellings 2 | The sound /ôr/ may be spelled ‘or,’ ‘ar,’ ‘ore,’ ‘our,’ or ‘oar’ as in born, war, wore, four, and board. | ornaments, orchard, tore, chores, core, forward, fortune, orbit, orchestra, sword | |
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The /är/ and /âr/ Sounds with Different Spellings 1 | The sound /är/ is usually spelled ‘ar’ as in car. The sound /âr/ may be spelled ‘are’ or ‘ar’ as in care and canary. | various, rare, scarce, spare, declare, apartment, argue, spark, area, harbor | |
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The /är/ and /âr/ Sounds with Different Spellings 2 | The sound /är/ is usually spelled ‘ar’ as in car. The sound /âr/ may be spelled ‘are’ or ‘ar’ as in care and canary. | dare, alarm, shark, beware, starch, tardy, pardon, harness, partner, scar | |
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Abbreviations 1 | An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase such as Aug. for August. Most abbreviations end with a period. | St., Dr., Ave., Apt., Jan.,. Feb., Mar., Apr., Aug., Sept. | |
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Abbreviations 2 | An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase such as Aug. for August. Most abbreviations end with a period. | Oct., Nov., Dec., Mon., Tues., Wed., Thurs., Fri., Sat., Sun. | |
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Silent Letters 1 | The sounds that some consonant letters usually stand for are not heard when some words are said as in knees and climb. | scenery, column, assignment, palm, doubt, shepherd, scissors, lamb, depot, knowledge |
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Silent Letters 2 | The sounds that some consonant letters usually stand for are not heard when some words are said as in knees and climb. | unknown, wreck, wreath, crumbs, knit, honest, knob, aisle, cupboard, kneel | |
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Unusual Spellings 1 | Consonant sounds may have unusual spellings such as /f/ spelled ‘ph’ or ‘gh’ in phone and cough; /sh/ spelled ‘ci’ or ‘ti’ in official and nation; and /k/ spelled ‘ch’ or ‘qu’ in choir and bouquet. | nephew, telegraph, paragraph, official, especially, physical, phone, mansion, choir, bouquet |
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Unusual Spellings 2 | Consonant sounds may have unusual spellings such as /f/ spelled ‘ph’ or ‘gh’ in phone and cough; /sh/ spelled ‘ci’ or ‘ti’ in official and nation; and /k/ spelled ‘ch’ or ‘qu’ in choir and bouquet. | delicious, characters, laughed, ancient, artificial, patient, rough, alphabet, phrase, chorus | |
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Math Words 1 | These words are useful for writing about mathematics. | mathematics, fifty, eighty, dual, eleven, subtract, minus, eighteen, multiply, fraction |
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Math Words 2 | These words are useful for writing about mathematics. | division, average, ninth, fifth, weight, length, figure, triangle, square, rectangle | |
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Science Words 1 | These words are useful for writing about science. | temperature, degree, energy, solar, fuel, nature, ecology, material, metal, liquid |
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Science Words 2 | These words are useful for writing about science. | nickel, science, experiment, process, steam, copper, planets, space, gravity, astronaut | |
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Government Words 1 | These words are useful for writing about government. | freedom, liberty, government, congress, senator, vice-president, voter, ballot, citizen, district |
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Government Words 2 | These words are useful for writing about government. | jury, courthouse, trial, lawyer, city hall, community, mayor, American, committee, governor | |
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Transportation Words 1 | These words are useful for writing about transportation. | vehicle, traffic, vacation, tour, transportation, taxi, subway, sailboat, submarine, helicopter |
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Transportation Words 2 | These words are useful for writing about transportation. | passengers, automobile, license, carpool, commuter, engine, gasoline, bike, rocket, ticket |
