Use pragmatic (e.g., intended audience and tone), textual (e.g., how author organized text to achieve unity and coherence), syntactic (e.g., variety of sentence structures), semantic/lexical/morphological (e.g., imagery), graphophonic (e.g., stress, pitch, and juncture of a word), and other cues (e.g., layout and accompanying graphics) to construct and to confirm meaning.
NOTE: Italicized text refers to those indicators that are emphasized at this grade level.
| (a) |
Recognize and understand the particular purpose, tone, and register (pragmatic), textual structures and patterns (textual), sentence structure (syntactical), word patterns and meanings (lexical/semantic/morphological), sound-symbol relationships (graphophonic), and other cues and conventions in visual, oral, print, and multimedia (including digital) texts. |
| (b) |
Use language cues and conventions to construct, monitor, and confirm meaning including: Pragmatic: Recognize and explain function and purpose of texts including informing, persuading, narrating, describing; recognize intended audience and tone; recognize use of language and language register (i.e., formal, informal, colloquialism, jargon, slang, clichés); detect use of emotional appeal or persuasive language (e.g., testimonials, emotional appeals, bandwagon effects). Textual: Recognize and explain how structures and features of texts can work to shape understanding including form/genre, artistic devices (e.g., personification, figurative language including similes and metaphors, exaggeration, symbolism), elements (e.g., point of view, conflict, theme, supporting arguments), and text features (e.g., credits, headings, diagrams, columns, sidebars, pull-quotes); understand a range of standard forms for texts including paragraphs and multi-paragraph compositions; recognize common organization patterns within texts (chronological, enumerative, problem/solution, cause/effect, comparison/contrast); understand how author organized text to achieve unity and coherence. Syntactical: Recognize and comprehend complete, interesting, and clear sentence structures that contain a verb and its subject; compound and complex sentences used for variety, interest, and effect; appropriate subordination and modification; effective use of qualifiers; effective punctuation and capitalization including periods, commas, semicolons, quotation marks, colons, dashes, and hyphens. Semantic/Lexical/Morphological: Recognize and comprehend words that are appropriate for audience, purpose, and context and capture a particular aspect of intended meaning; recognize synonyms used for variety; use context, prefixes, suffixes, root words, sounds, and reference tools including dictionaries, thesauri, and handbooks to determine meaning of words; recognize words used figuratively and for imagery. Graphophonic: Recognize and comprehend word patterns, the stress, pitch, and juncture of a word, affixes, root words, onomatopoeia, and alliteration. Other Cues: Recognize and comprehend non-verbal cues (including gestures, physical movement, facial expressions, and body language), layout and accompanying graphics, and how sound effects, visuals, and multimedia aids are used to enhance presentations. |
