• All students in grades K-5 receive English Language Arts (ELA) instruction during dedicated blocks of time in their student schedule. The Interboro School District has adopted Benchmark Advance as our core reading program across primary and intermediate grades. Benchmark Advance is used to instruct and support learning with fluency, vocabulary development, comprehension skills, metacognitive strategies, grammar, and writing. Benchmark Advance also emphasizes knowledge building as each grade level unit themes build off prior learning to support the development of background knowledge for students. Within grades K-2, students receive core phonetic instruction from the Orton Gillingham Framework. Orton Gillingham instruction centers on a multisensory approach, connected to explicit and systematic instruction to develop student’s phonetic skills.

  • Kindergarten - ELA


    Unit 1- Plants and Animals Have Needs

    Essential Question: Why do living things have different needs?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Animals and plants need certain things, including food, water, air, and space to survive.
    • Animals and plants have traits, parts, and structures that keep them alive and help them grow and reproduce.

     

    Unit 2- Every Story Has Characters

    Essential Question: How are characters different?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Being helpful and hard-working are two important character traits.
    • We can appreciate other people more when we understand their perspectives.

     

    Unit 3- Rules at Home and School

    Essential Question: Why do we have rules?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • We can stay safe by following rules at home, at school, and in the community.
    • Rules help us act responsibly, get along with others, and make good choices.

     

    Unit 4- Writers Tell Many Stories

    Essential Question: Why do people tell stories?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Characters and their adventures and experiences can entertain us and teach us lessons.
    • Stories can show how families and friends care for one another.

     

    Unit 5- Technology at Home and School

    Essential Question: Why do we use technology?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Technology is changing how we work, learn, travel, and live.
    • We can use technology to interact with others in new ways.

     

    Unit 6- Stories Have a Message

    Essential Question: How do we know what is right?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • People tell traditional stories, like folktales, to teach important lessons.
    • Stories can teach us that ordinary people can accomplish big things, especially when they work together.

     

    Unit 7- Holidays and Celebrations

    Essential Question: Why do we celebrate people and events?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • We honor people who made positive contributions to the world with celebrations and holidays.
    • We celebrate holidays with food, parades, and/or being with friends and family.

     

    Unit 8- Weather and Seasons

    Essential Question: How do our lives change with the seasons?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Weather and temperature change with the seasons.
    • The clothes we wear and the things we do are affected by weather and seasons.

     

    Unit 9- Meeting Our Needs and Wants

    Essential Question: Why do we make choices?


    Enduring Understandings:

    • People work to earn and save money to pay for things they need and want.
    • People make choices about what to buy to meet their needs and wants.

     

    Unit 10- Forces and Motion

    Essential Question: What makes things move?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Objects are in motion all around us.
    • We use forces and motion to help us in our daily lives.

     

  • First Grade - ELA

     Unit 1- Plants and Animals Grow and Change

    Essential Question: Why do living things change?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Every living thing has a life cycle in which it grows and changes.
    • Many stories include animal characters that grow and change.

     

    Unit 2- Many Kinds of Characters

    Essential Question: How do we learn about characters?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Stories of all kinds, including fairy tales, fables, fantasies, and realistic fiction, have characters who face challenges.
    • Stories can teach us that families and communities work best when people make responsible choices and help one another.

     

    Unit 3- Being a Good Community Member

    Essential Question: Why do people get involved in their communities?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • When people exhibit the qualities of good citizenship, communities become safer and more enjoyable.
    • Responsible citizens follow laws and principles that include respect for the rights, opinions, and property of others.

     

    Unit 4- Stories Have a Narrator

    Essential Question: How do people create stories?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Realistic stories tell about characters, settings, and events that could exist. Fantasy stories include elements that could not happen in real life.
    • Reading stories from different points of view allows us to learn about other people’s perspectives.

     

    Unit 5- Technology at Work

    Essential Question: How can technology make a difference in our lives?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • The use of technology can help people work more quickly and efficiently.
    • People create technology to solve problems and improve the way people live and do work.

     

    Unit 6- Stories Teach Many Lessons

    Essential Question: What can we learn from a mistake?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Stories, such as fables, folktales, and realistic fiction, can teach the reader a moral or lesson.
    • Teamwork can help people solve problems that they may not have been able to solve on their own.

     

    Unit 7- Past, Present, and Future

    Essential Question: Why is the past important?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Knowledge of the past is important to understand the present and plan for the future.
    • People use tools, such as timelines and maps, to help organize and understand events of the past.

     

    Unit 8- Observing the Sky

    Essential Question: Why do the sun and moon capture our imagination?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • By observing and exploring, we develop knowledge about Earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars.
    • In many cultures, people tell stories to explain what they observe in the night sky.

     

    Unit 9- We Use Goods and Services

    Essential Question: Why do people trade with each other?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • The exchange of goods and services is an essential part of living in a community.
    • There are many different ways to create goods and provide services.

     

    Unit 10- Exploring Sound, Light, and Heat

    Essential Question: How would our lives be different without sound, light, and heat?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Living things use energy in the form of sound, light, and heat every day.
    • We can use our senses to build knowledge about light, sound, and heat.

  • Second Grade - ELA

    Unit 1 - Plants and Animals in Their Habitat

    Essential Question: How do living things get what they need to survive?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • The world has many types of habitats, with different weather, seasons, animals, and plants.
    • Living things have different features that help them meet their needs in their habitat.
    • Reading about animal characters in literature can help us understand animals and their habitats.

     

    Unit 2 - Characters Facing Challenges

    Essential Question: What can we learn when we face problems?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • All stories, whether traditional or modern, have characters who face problems.
    • Characters in stories face problems caused by internal and external challenges.
    • Readers can build knowledge about solving problems in the real world by looking at how characters face challenges in stories.

     

    Unit 3 - Government at Work

    Essential Question: Why do we need a government?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • The U.S. Government provides laws and services to help protect the freedom and safety of the people.
    • People can contribute to their communities and their government in many different ways.
    • The United States can be represented by symbols and documents.
    • Historical fiction is a genre that bases its stories and characters on actual events and people from the past.

     

    Unit 4- Many Characters, Many Points of View

    Essential Question: How can a story change depending on who tells it?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Folktales are traditional stories that often teach a lesson and are part of many cultures.
    • Every story is narrated from a unique point of view and that point of view shapes the story.
    • We can learn valuable lessons about understanding others, working together, and problem-solving through stories.

     

    Unit 5 - Solving Problems Through Technology

    Essential Question: Where do ideas for inventions come from?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • People are constantly inventing new things to solve problems.
    • Inventions are often inspired by nature.
    • Anyone can be an inventor.

     

    Unit 6 - Tales to Live By

    Essential Question: What can different cultures teach us?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Storytelling is a very old tradition shared by many cultures around the world.
    • People tell stories to entertain, educate, and share ideas.
    • There are common themes, or central messages, that can be found in folktales across many cultures.
    • Readers can build knowledge and understanding about different cultures and traditions, and learn valuable lessons, from folktales.

     

    Unit 7 - Investigating the Past

    Essential Question: How does understanding the past shape the future?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Primary sources include firsthand accounts, photographs, writings, maps, and artifacts.
    • Primary sources help people learn about history and understand what life was like in the past.
    • People search for artifacts and fossils in order to better understand the past.
    • Understanding and learning from the past helps people better plan for the future.

     

    Unit 8 - Wind and Water Change Earth

    Essential Question: How do we react to changes in nature?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Wind and water cause weathering and erosion, changing the shape of land.
    • Changes can happen slowly, over a long time period, or quickly.
    • Human activity can cause changes to Earth’s surface that affect all living things.
    • Scientists record weather patterns to make predictions which can help people prepare for severe weather.

     

    Unit 9 - Buyers and Sellers

    Essential Question: How do the goods we make, buy, and sell connect us?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Goods are items that are made, bought, and sold.
    • People use natural resources to make, or produce, goods.
    • People make choices about what goods to buy based their needs and wants.
    • Producers, buyers, and sellers are all connected.

     

    Unit 10 - States of Matter

    Essential Question: How can matter change?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Everything is made up of matter.
    • Matter has three states: solid, liquid, or gas.
    • We can describe and sort matter by its physical properties.
    • Physical properties of matter (such as size, shape, and state) can change.
    • Some changes to matter can be reversed and others cannot.

  • Third Grade - ELA

    Unit 1 - Animal Adaptations

    Essential Question: How do living things survive in their environment?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Over time, groups of living things develop and pass down certain features or traits that help them survive in their environments.
    • An adaptation is an inherited feature or trait that helps a living thing survive where it lives.
    • Different animals have different adaptations for survival depending on where they live, what they eat, and what they need protection from.

     

    Unit 2 - Ways Characters Shape Stories

    Essential Question: How do our actions influence our lives?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Writers tell traditional tales including fables, tall tales, myths, and folktales; these tales carry important messages and lessons for readers.
    • Every action has a consequence, and a story’s plot is shaped by the actions of its characters.
    • Readers can learn from characters’ actions and their consequences.
    • People who think about the consequences of their actions can make caring and constructive decisions.

     

    Unit 3 - Government for the People

    Essential Question: Why do people participate in government?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Participating in government gives people a voice in how their lives are governed.
    • In a democracy, people have a civic duty to take part in government and contribute to their communities.
    • Throughout history, people in the United States have protested unjust laws and worked with the government to gain rights and equal and fair treatment.
    • There are many ways to participate in government, including: voting, proposing new laws, petitioning leaders, protesting inequality, and/or serving as a volunteer or worker.

     

    Unit 4 - Comparing Points of View

    Essential Question: What makes people view the same experiences differently?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • The narrator and the characters in a story have different perspectives, or ways of looking at the story’s events.
    • Authors can explore the same characters using different perspectives, settings, and literary genres.
    • A play is a literary form with unique storytelling features.
    • We can learn about ourselves—and others—by examining and respecting others’ perspectives.

     

    Unit 5 - Advancements in Technology

    Essential Question: What is the value of innovation?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Inventions and new technology are created to solve problems.
    • Technology influences and changes how we live, work, communicate, play, and learn.
    • Inventors learn from and build upon the works of other inventors.
    • Technology can help connect people and cultures.

     

    Unit 6 - Making Decisions

    Essential Question: What helps us solve problems?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Realistic fiction stories take place in real-life settings with believable characters and plots.
    • Authors can approach similar themes in a variety of settings, with different plots and characters.
    • Characters’ actions have consequences that impact the story.
    • Readers can learn problem-solving and decision-making skills by thinking about characters’ actions and their consequences.

     

    Unit 7 - Communities: Then and Now

    Essential Question: What is a community?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Communities are places where people live and work.
    • Communities can be urban, suburban, or rural areas.
    • Each community has its own unique and defining characteristics.
    • History, culture, and geographical location impact communities and how they grow and change. 

     

    Unit 8 - Weather and Climate

    Essential Question: How do we understand change?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Weather can change from day to day or moment to moment.
    • Scientists observe and record weather patterns over long periods of time to understand a region’s climate.
    • Earth has different climate zones with distinct seasons and weather patterns.
    • Weather and climate affect people’s lives.
    • Scientists can use climate data and knowledge of weather patterns to predict the weather.

     

    Unit 9 - Spending Time and Money

    Essential Question: What do our economic choices tell us about ourselves?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Economic resources include both time and money, and people are constantly making decisions about these resources.
    • There are benefits and costs to the economic choices people and businesses make.
    • Personal decisions influence how and why people spend their money.
    • People and businesses interact as they make and sell different goods and services.
    • Making goods and services requires people to have certain skills and knowledge.

     

    Unit 10 - Forces and Interactions

    Essential Question: How does understanding science help us achieve our goals?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Objects in contact exert forces on each other.
    • Movement is caused by unbalanced forces acting on an object.
    • By observing and measuring patterns of motion, we can predict how things will move.
    • We can use our knowledge of forces and interactions to solve problems.
    • Forces of nature, such as gravity and magnetism, have direct impact on people’s lives and have inspired literature throughout history.

  • Fourth Grade - ELA

    Unit 1 - Observing Nature

    Essential Question: How do we respond to nature?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Knowledge of the natural world is based on observation and inquiry.
    • Plants and animals, including humans, interact with and depend upon each other and their environment.
    • Interactions with the natural world bring up strong feelings and emotions in people.
    • Nature’s beauty and encounters with nature are recurring themes in literature. Characters reveal themselves through their responses to nature.

     

    Unit 2 - Character’s Actions and Reactions

    Essential Question: How do we reveal ourselves to others?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Writers can tell the same story in more than one genre, such as a drama and a novel or short story.
    • Characters’ actions and reactions influence a story’s plot, as well as other characters.
    • Real-life actions and reactions have effects on real events and people.
    • Writers intentionally choose characters’ words and actions to reveal the characters to the reader.

     

    Unit 3 - Government in Action

    Essential Question: How can government influence the way we live?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Local, state, and federal governments have and share different powers and responsibilities.
    • All levels of government provide services that promote the wellbeing of society, such as education, transportation, and the protection of people’s health and safety.
    • Elected representatives, government officials, and volunteers work together at all levels of government to solve problems in times of crisis.
    • We can learn about power and the role of government not just through nonfiction but also through fiction and fictional scenarios.

     

    Unit 4 - Understanding Different Points of View

    Essential Question: What do we learn when we look at the world through the eyes of others?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Realistic fiction stories contain characters that could exist in the real world and events that could really happen.
    • Every story is narrated from a distinctive literary point of view and offers a unique perspective on events.
    • Authors intentionally use point of view and perspective to influence what a reader knows and feels about both the characters and the events in a story.
    • People’s unique perspectives influence the way they understand both other people and events in the world around them.

     

    Unit 5 - Technology for Tomorrow

    Essential Question: How do we make decisions about developing new technology?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Technology can be controversial and have both positive and negative impacts on society.
    • We design and develop robots to do many jobs efficiently.
    • Automation continues to change how we live and work.
    • Society’s needs, as well as other motivations, drive the development of new technologies.

     

    Unit 6 - Confronting Challenges

    Essential Question: How do we overcome obstacles?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • A quest is a story in which the main character goes on a difficult journey to accomplish a mission or goal. Many traditional tales are quest tales.
    • Every character responds to challenges in different ways, and these actions often reveal a character’s traits
    • Different cultures present and explore universal themes and human experiences in their own unique ways.
    • Analyzing how characters confront challenges helps reveal a story’s theme.

     

    Unit 7 - The Transcontinental Railroad

    Essential Question: How do communities evolve?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • A community can be a location or a group that shares common characteristics.
    • Many factors shape the United States; Immigrant communities play a central role in this process.
    • In the 1860s, railroads connected communities across North America, allowing for the settlement and expansion of what is today the United States.
    • Innovations in transportation and communication technology reshape and impact communities.
    • The expansion of the United States had catastrophic effects on Native American peoples and communities.

     

    Unit 8 - Earth Changes

    Essential Question: How do Earth’s natural processes impact our lives?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Earthquakes are caused by shifts in Earth’s tectonic plates. The sudden release of energy moves in waves through Earth’s crust, shaking Earth’s surface.
    • Volcanoes form when magma from within Earth’s upper mantle works its way through Earth’s crust. Eruptions of hot lava, gas, and ash are caused by pressure beneath Earth’s surface.
    • Natural disasters are sudden and violent events that can threaten people’s lives and change Earth’s surface.
    • People can study the forces that cause natural disasters to better understand them and respond to them.
    • Natural disasters are emotional experiences for those who live through them and are often the subject of firsthand accounts.

     

    Unit 9 - Resources and Their Impact

    Essential Question: How does access to resources influence people’s lives?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Economies depend on the resources available for use and how those resources are used.
    • Communities are often shaped largely by the resources available to them.
    • Protecting resources is important in sustaining long-term availability and use.
    • Economic hardship and the struggle to improve workers’ lives are common topics in literature.
    • Some narrative poetry reimagines important historical events through the use of vivid imagery and figurative language.

     

    Unit 10 - The Power of Electricity

    Essential Question: Where do scientific discoveries lead us?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.
    • Energy can be converted from one form to another.
    • Scientific discoveries build upon one another and can directly impact the way humans live.
    • Since the harnessing of AC/DC currents in the late 1800s, many people have grown to rely on electricity in order to function in daily life.
    • Although female inventors historically contributed to the field of electricity, they were often denied true recognition in their lifetimes because of their gender.

  • Fifth Grade - ELA

    Unit 1 - Cultivating Natural Resources

    Essential Question: How do we decide which resources we should develop?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • All animals, including humans, directly or indirectly depend on plants to convert the sun’s energy into food.
    • As scientific knowledge and technology progresses, the ways in which people develop natural resources changes.
    • Human development of resources has a lasting impact on the natural world.
    • There are costs and benefits to developing resources.

     

    Unit 2 - Developing Character’s Relationships

    Essential Question: Why do we value certain qualities in people?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Realistic fiction is a genre of literature in which authors create characters who could exist in real life, flaws, and all, as well as plots that could happen.
    • Authors use their craft to communicate a character’s traits to readers, and how these traits are valued.
    • Certain character traits, such as bravery and inquisitiveness, are valued across much of literature.
    • Characters in stories can teach readers real-life problem-solving and relationship skills.

     

    Unit 3- The U.S. Constitution: Then and Now

    Essential Question: Why do laws continue to evolve?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • The purpose of the U.S. Constitution was to outline the powers and responsibilities of the three branches of the federal government.
    • The laws of U.S. Constitution can be added to through the amendment process.
    • Some laws need to be amended to eliminate bias and to expand the protection of people’s rights.
    • Citizens may petition or protest for a cause and for changes to be made to laws.
    • Determination is an important factor in working for changes to the U.S. Constitution.

     

    Unit 4 - Recognizing Author’s Point of View

    Essential Question: How can other perspectives help us evaluate the world?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Every work of poetry or prose has a distinct point of view, a perspective, purpose, and theme(s).
    • A narrator’s or speaker’s point of view and perspective influences how events are described and perceived.
    • People of different genders, cultures, or perspectives may experience the same events or interactions differently.
    • Reading about an event through another’s viewpoint offers readers an opportunity to build social awareness and expand their understanding of different perspectives, cultures, and contexts.

     

    Unit 5 - Technology’s Impact on Society

    Essential Question: What value does technology bring to people’s lives?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Technological innovation can have both positive and negative effects.
    • The costs and benefits of new technologies are not distributed evenly.
    • Scientific engineering is often used to make work more efficient.
    • Technological innovation is a crucial part of the economic development of the United States.
    • The Industrial Revolution (the late 1700s to the early 1800s) was a period when new technologies introduced widespread and rapid changes to society.

     

    Unit 6 - Up Against the Wild

    Essential Question: What compels us to survive?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • All works of fiction contain a theme, or central message, that is supported by setting, character, plot, and/or other story elements. 
    • Works of fiction may vary in tone, style, or structure, yet still explore similar themes.
    • The universal themes explored in literature are those that speak to all people, regardless of gender or ethnicity.
    • The conflict of “animal vs. nature” and the question of “what compels living things to survive?” are universal themes often explored in literature.
    • Literary characters and their response to challenges allow readers to learn valuable lessons about decision-making and problem-solving.

     

    Unit 7 - Conflicts That Shaped a Nation

    Essential Question: How does conflict shape a society?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Wars, and other conflicts that are resolved with violence, have major social, emotional, economic, and political effects that have a lasting impact on the peoples and nations involved.
    • People can have different views, perspectives, and experiences of conflict.
    • Different groups of people participated in the American Revolution for different reasons and the final outcome of the war impacted these groups in positive and negative ways.
    • A wide range of primary and secondary sources are important pieces when building a full and meaningful understanding of the past.
    • Writers may choose to deal with important historical topics such as the Revolutionary War through historical fiction.

     

    Unit 8 - Water: Fact and Fiction

    Essential Question: What does water mean to people and the societies they live in?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Water is an essential resource that supports all life on Earth.
    • Water represents various things to different cultures around the world.
    • Ancient Greek myths contain many sea gods and goddesses that exert their powers over mortals.
    • Water plays an important role in the formation of communities and societies, and in people’s everyday lives.
    • Freshwater and saltwater resources/oceans should be conserved and should be protected.

     

    Unit 9 - The Economic Development of Cities

    Essential Question: How do economic changes impact society?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • The first people to live in the area that becomes a city are part of that city’s history.
    • The economic development of a city is tied to its geographic location, resources, industry, population, and culture.
    • People migrate to cities looking for jobs and opportunities.
    • The migration of people to cities is fueled by factors such as racism, bias, economic hardship, and government policy.
    • The economy can experience both ups and downs and often these ups and downs are cyclical.

     

    Unit 10 - Transforming Matter

    Essential Question: Why do we measure and describe the world?

    Enduring Understandings:

    • Our understanding of the world around us depends on the work of scientists who observe, measure, and describe matter, its properties, and its interactions.
    • Everything is made of combined particles of matter called atoms, too small to be seen by the eye alone.
    • The arrangement of atomic particles in matter determines its state (solid, liquid, or gas) and other properties.
    • A chemical reaction occurs when two or more substances combine to form a different substance.
    • Scientific advances in many fields of science, including health and medicine, rely on the study of matter and its chemical interactions/reactions.