Starting in Kindergarten, students attending Texas state public schools are are introduced to curriculum based on the Texas Essential Skills for Knowledge & Success test. Starting in third grade, students begin taking the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge & Skills). Students scores are used to determine whether or not they can pass through to the next grade. Essentially, parents and students should use their experience with the TEKS curriculum as building blocks in grades one and two to prepare for the TAKS in third grade.
At Global Tutors, we assess your students specific learning needs. If your student is in first or second grade, we will begin structuring our curriculum in a style that builds upon grade level skills and aims to provide students with mastery of the third grade TAKS expectations. If your student is in grade three or above, by providing Global Tutors with a copy of your childs most recent TAKS test results, Global Tutors can quickly and adequately pinpoint areas of need. Addditionally, if you do not wish to share your students test scores, Global Tutors can assess your child for knowledge of relevant grade level standards and create a lesson plan that builds confidence and strength in each area of improvement, preparing them for success in the classroom year-round.
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Global Tutors has created curriculum that adheres to the Texas Essential Skills for Knowledge & Success (TEKS) standards in relation to the skills they will most need to do well on the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills). By grade three, students will need to pass the language arts portion of the TAKS with a proficient score. Students are given three opportunities throughout the year to pass the test before being retained in the same grade for an additional year. At Global Tutors, we structure our curriculum around the most important areas of the TAKS as pertaining to the TEKS, in order to prepare students for scoring above proficient range. Starting at grade one, we structure our curriculum to prepare students for success by grade three testing. Global Tutors will ensure that, regardless of your student's starting point, with a combination of our highly trained tutors following TEKS & TAKS-based curriculum and your studentfs diligent effort, grade level essential skills will be mastered.
Depending on the needs and skill level of your student, Global Tutors has a variety of solutions for areas not yet mastered or in need of refreshing:
| Grades 1-3 |
TEKS/TAKS Expectations |
Global Tutors Solutions |
| Alphabet Recognition & Phonemic Awareness |
All students must master Global Tutors Alphabet friends Sound and Letter Unit |
Students further develop recognition of sounds and letter blends, and the translation of the combination of these sounds into words.
Students learn to sound words out for reading as well as spelling.
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Students who have mastered the initial Alphabet friends sounds move on to blend consonants and vowels together to form words, which they learn to spell, read, write, and recognize. |
Students develop relationships between spoken words and written text and are able to communicate basic concepts in a story, such as the beginning, middle, and end.
Students are exposed to literary elements in poetry, nursery rhymes, and texts to prepare their literary analysis skills for future development. 1, 2
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Students read along with tutors to develop an understanding of written/oral relationships.
Students are asked to orally communicate their version of the beginning, middle, and end of various forms of literature.
Students are encouraged to make their OWN stories and poems as prompted by the texts read together. 1, 2, 4
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| Students are exposed to new vocabulary through written texts being read aloud, together or independently.1 |
Students are introduced to new vocabulary in entertaining, easy to read texts that can be read together and eventually independently. 1 |
Students use new and existing vocabulary and spelling knowledge to form basic sentences.
Students are expected to develop cultural awareness and an understanding of daily activities and obligations through discussion and exposure to diverse texts.1
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Each session, students are encouraged to tell their tutors about their daily activities after being prompted by a short anecdote or story chosen by the tutor as being culturally diverse 1
Students will develop a sense of writing for pleasure and to convey their ideas, and learn early on to enjoy the journaling activity.3
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Understanding of the differentiation between capital and lower case letters, words and letters,
misspelled words versus correctly spelled words,
paragraphs and sentences. |
Students will be introduced to each new concept,
Asked to orally summarize the concept in their own words,
Play games with each concept.
Students are not expected to move on to a more difficult concept until they have shown full mastery of each individual concept.
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Students must begin to recognize how letters form words, similar sounds, rhyming words, and develop the ability to sound out increasingly difficult multisyllabic words.
Students must begin to use these techniques to help them understand and conceptualize literature in a group and eventually independently. 1, 3
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Students will work through these concepts one at a time, being asked to recognize them in engaging activities such as reading common, favorite nursery rhymes and being asked to circle repeating sounds.
Students will build confidence at their own pace with their tutor to the point where they are comfortable trying new, challenging tasks that they may have otherwise been overwhelmed by in the classroom environment. 1, 3
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TAKS objectives (to be tested in grade three and beyond)
Objective 1: The student will demonstrate basic understanding of culturally diverse written texts.
Objective 2: The student will apply knowledge of literary elements to understand culturally diverse written texts.
Objective 3: The student will use a variety of strategies to analyze culturally diverse written texts.
Objective 4: The students will apply critical-thinking skills to analyze culturally diverse written texts
Example of a first grade activity using the poem What in the World Got into the Cat?
Pre-reading activities:
Students would first be introduced to the title before seeing the text of the poem and asked, what do you think this poem will be about? What do you know about cats? What do YOU think happens to the cat in this poem? Prompting critical thinking and inference skills.
Active reading activities:
Students would read the poem below along with their tutor. Students would first listen to their tutor read the poem, then read it aloud together with their tutor.
Post-reading activities:
Students would be asked to respond in verbal and written format to questions like, gIs this cat like any cat you currently know? Why or why not?h gDoes this story remind you of any story or poem we have read together in the past? Why is it similar, why is it different?h and finally the tutor and student might even write a poem or story together from the cat's point of view!
WHAT IN THE WORLD GOT INTO THE CAT
By Gregory K.
What in the world got into the cat?
Was it something he ate?
Can you answer me that?
He polished our silver.
He vacuumed the house.
He chased our poor dog,
And he danced with a mouse.
He did all my homework.
He mended Dad's shirt.
He made us lasagna
And pie for dessert.
We went to the movies
While he baby-sat...
So, what in the world
Got into the cat?
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