English Language Arts

Language arts (also known as English language arts or ELA) is the study and improvement of the arts of language. Traditionally, the primary divisions in language arts are literature and language, where language in this case refers to both linguistics, and specific languages. Explore teaching resources for English Language Arts. Inspire your students with videos, games, and activities aligned to state and national standards. English Language Arts can refer to a variety of English language forms and expressions, including the study and practice of writing, reading, and speaking in English. Some of these more. English Language Arts. Get help with your english language arts course work! Access answers to thousands of language arts questions with step by step explanations that are easy for you to comprehend.

English Language Arts Practice Test

Contact Information

Arts
ELA Consultant
Lori Pusateri-Lane
(307) 777-8595
lori.pusateri-lane@wyo.gov

The Wyoming Language Arts Content and Performance Standards include four topics, or strands: Reading, including both Literature and Informational Text; Writing, Speaking and Listening; and Language. For grades K-5, standards for foundational literacy skills which support Reading Fluency are also included. The Wyoming Department of Education is responsible for setting standards which define what students should understand and be able to do by the end of each grade in order to progress toward graduation, as well as college and career readiness. Wyoming Language Arts Content and Performance Standards do not dictate methodology, instructional materials used, or how the material is delivered.

English Language Arts Content & Performance Standards Downloads

English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, & Technical Subjects

  • Appendix A: Research Supporting Key Elements of the Standards (PDF)
  • Appendix B: Test Exemplars and Performance Tasks (PDF)
  • Appendix C: Samples of Student Writing (PDF)
English Language Arts

ELA Resources

  • Navigating Text Complexity: This site provides educators with a comprehensive definition of quantitative and qualitative dimensions of text complexity. Materials include text complexity placemats, rubrics, suggested text sets, and instructional resources that demonstrate how and why to use these tools.
  • Fisher and Frey: Created by literacy experts Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, this website offers helpful resources and insightful articles for teachers. Some topics include: complex text and struggling readers, examining the composing process, new literacies, effective learning environments, and more.
  • Achieve the Core: What does strong student writing aligned to the Common Core look like? In Common provides hundreds of samples of student work from K-12 classrooms across the country. The samples are meant to illustrate how a student’s writing progresses as they gain fluency in the three types of Common Core Writing: opinion/argument writing, informative/ explanatory writing, and narrative writing.

Summer Learning Opportunities

With the assistance of MetaMetrics, the Wyoming Department of Education is combating summer learning loss by encouraging students to access free online tools designed to promote reading during the summer break.

Arts

In my years of helping other Charlotte Mason homeschoolers, probably the one topic that comes up most often is language arts. I receive questions from “How do you do language arts the Charlotte Mason way?” to “What about composition?” to “How do you teach spelling and vocabulary?” to “Can you recommend a living English grammar book?”

So let’s take some time to look together at language arts. Over the next several weeks we will discuss what is included in language arts and how Charlotte taught all those components in simple yet effective ways. Today, let’s start by defining what “language arts” means.

What Is Language Arts, Anyway?

Don’t let the fancy term throw you: “language arts.” Back in Charlotte Mason’s day that term didn’t exist. It’s simply an educational label that was invented along the way. In fact, let’s take the term apart for a moment and think about what it means.

“Art” is a way of communicating an idea, whether it is done through music, paint, sculpture, or dance. The goal of “art” is to communicate an idea.

Now add the word “language” to that concept. The goal of “language arts” is to be able to use a language proficiently in order to communicate an idea.

That’s it. Nothing scary or intimidating. Just learning how to communicate ideas through language. You’ve been teaching language arts to your children naturally since they were born.

The Parts of Language Arts

Since we want our children to be proficient at communicating ideas through language, we want to make sure we cover all the ways language occurs. So language arts include the four main components of

  • Listening,
  • Reading,
  • Speaking, and
  • Writing.

Everything that relates to listening, speaking, reading, and writing in your selected language can be considered part of your language arts program.

English Language Arts In Spanish

Teachers through the years have tried to break down that big goal of “communicating ideas through language” into individual skills to work on (as teachers are apt to do). Most language arts programs will include these specific skills.

  • Alphabet
  • Listening Skills
  • Phonics/Beginning Reading
  • Parts of Speech
  • Rhyming Words
  • Sentence Structure
  • Handwriting
  • Punctuation
  • Reading Comprehension
  • Capitalization
  • Writing Composition
  • Public Speaking
  • Vocabulary
  • Proofreading
  • Spelling
  • Grammar
  • Reference skills (alphabetizing; using a dictionary, etc.)
  • Word study (homonyms, synonyms, prefixes, suffixes)

Most traditional language arts programs cover those skills as fifteen or more separate subjects. Charlotte Mason used about half that many subjects and still covered all the skills in an interesting and living way that kept the students’ attention and encouraged them to love learning.

How? We’ll look at the specifics in the coming weeks.

New Language Arts Handbook

English Language Arts Images

We’re excited to announce the newest addition to our Charlotte Mason handbook series:Hearing and Reading, Telling and Writing. Everything that we will cover in this series of posts is included in this new handbook, plus lots more helpful information and encouragement.

English Language Arts Games

In its pages you will find that Charlotte’s approach to language arts is simple, saves time, and uses common sense methods.

It is my hope that having Charlotte’s methods and ideas gathered into one place, along with her own words, will provide you with a quick go-to resource that will boost your confidence and reassure you that you have “this language arts thing” covered.

English Language Arts Common Core Standards

Be sure to download the free sample of this new book. It includes the simple what-to-teach-when chart, as well as the entire chapter on narration.