36 weeks of instruction cover standards-based skills such as:
- Reading Comprehension: analogies, categorizing, cause and effect, fact and opinion, figures of speech, inference, similes & metaphors
- Vocabulary/Word Study: base words, prefixes, suffixes; vowel sounds; contractions; homophones; synonyms/antonyms; word meaning from context; spelling
- Punctuation: punctuation at the end of a sentence; periods in abbreviations; colons in time; underlining magazines, books, plays; run-on sentences;
quotation marks in speech, songs, poems, and short stories; commas in dates, in addresses, in a series, to separate dialogue, in parenthetical expression/direct address, in compound sentences, after an introductory phrase, and with nonrestrictive appositive; apostrophes in contractions and possessives; interjections; punctuation in friendly letters
- Capitalization: sentence beginning; days, months, holidays; books, songs, poems; names of places; proper names and titles of people
- Grammar and Usage: correct article, determiner, adjective; double negatives; pronouns; singular & plural nouns; common & proper nouns; possessive nouns; verb forms; verb tense; subject/predicate; parts of speech; comparative & superlative forms; subject/verb agreement;
sentence types; combining sentences; identify a sentence
- Reference Skills: alphabetical order; dictionary guide words; reference materials; syllabication