To make your planning simple, use our Article-A-Day Scope & Sequences to assign up to a full year of Article-A-Day! The Article-A-Day sets are grouped topically or to systematically build vocabulary. Both Scope & Sequences have been designed to become increasingly more challenging as the school year progresses. Now it is even easier to achieve the best practice of doing Article-A-Day for at least 15 weeks a year!
How to Use the Topical Article-A-Day Scope & Sequence:
- The Topical Scope & Sequence aligns with special events across the school year, such as Black History Month. Feel free to skip and move weeks to align with the breaks in your school’s calendar.
- Share information across the grades and build in special activities for your whole school with shared topics across grade levels.
- Don't worry about starting late! You can pick up the Topical Scope & Sequence at any point throughout the school year.
How to Use the Vocabulary Article-A-Day Scope & Sequence:
- The Vocabulary Scope & Sequence begins the year with Meaning Mappers, which are daily, teacher-led activities to help students build connections among words in an Article-A-Day set. Then in the second half of the year, Word Detectives are introduced, which are teacher-led word part activities on the last day of the Article-A-Day routine.
- Before January, feel free to skip and move weeks to align with the breaks in your school’s calendar. You can pick up the Vocabulary Scope & Sequence any time in the first half of the year!
- After January, when Word Detectives appear, it is important to stick to the sequence because the activities have been carefully designed to introduce affixes in a specific order and build on each other.
Before you get started, review or learn about the Article-A-Day routine. Click here to go back to the Scope & Sequence Assigner.
Scope & Sequence FAQs
I teach 5th grade (or 4th grade, etc.). Why is there a set that is marked for 3rd grade/a lower grade in the beginning of the Topical Scope & Sequence?
The Scope & Sequences are designed to be one grade level lower through September (except kindergarten, since we do not have text levels lower than kindergarten!). At the beginning of the year, in order to establish the routine, it can be helpful to start with sets that all (or almost all) of your students can read or listen to without difficulty. Each grade has on-grade-level sets starting in October (with the exception being 8th grade -- see below).
Remember that the Scope & Sequence is just a starting point. If your students need more challenging texts, don’t hesitate to start a grade level above! There are also extra weeks built in, so you can start further along in the Scope & Sequence if that is best for your students -- you may just want to align the thematic/topical weeks (such as Women’s History Month) accordingly.
The Topical Scope & Sequence doesn’t have a topic I’m looking to cover using Article-A-Day. What should I do?
Article-A-Day is designed to be flexible, so feel free to pick and choose which sets to assign or select your own! There are plenty of interesting Article-A-Day sets that didn’t make it into this Topical Scope & Sequence, so you can explore other topics and options to assign using the Article-A-Day filter on the ReadWorks site.
How do I lead a Meaning Mapper or Word Detective with my class?
We have a guide that walks you through how to introduce Meaning Mapper and also Word Detective with your students. They are meant to be interactive and playful, so try to keep it fun!
Why is the 8th grade Scope & Sequences the same as 7th grade for the first semester?
We do not have as many 8th-grade Article-A-Day sets as we have for other grades. Therefore, 8th grade follows 7th grade until January, and then from January to June, all sets are at an 8th-grade level. We have a goal to create more 8th-grade sets to remedy this.
The Scope & Sequences are designed to be one grade level lower through September (except kindergarten, since we do not have text levels lower than kindergarten!). At the beginning of the year, in order to establish the routine, it can be helpful to start with sets that all (or almost all) of your students can read or listen to without difficulty. Each grade has on-grade-level sets starting in October (with the exception being 8th grade -- see below).
Remember that the Scope & Sequence is just a starting point. If your students need more challenging texts, don’t hesitate to start a grade level above! There are also extra weeks built in, so you can start further along in the Scope & Sequence if that is best for your students -- you may just want to align the thematic/topical weeks (such as Women’s History Month) accordingly.
The Topical Scope & Sequence doesn’t have a topic I’m looking to cover using Article-A-Day. What should I do?
Article-A-Day is designed to be flexible, so feel free to pick and choose which sets to assign or select your own! There are plenty of interesting Article-A-Day sets that didn’t make it into this Topical Scope & Sequence, so you can explore other topics and options to assign using the Article-A-Day filter on the ReadWorks site.
How do I lead a Meaning Mapper or Word Detective with my class?
We have a guide that walks you through how to introduce Meaning Mapper and also Word Detective with your students. They are meant to be interactive and playful, so try to keep it fun!
Why is the 8th grade Scope & Sequences the same as 7th grade for the first semester?
We do not have as many 8th-grade Article-A-Day sets as we have for other grades. Therefore, 8th grade follows 7th grade until January, and then from January to June, all sets are at an 8th-grade level. We have a goal to create more 8th-grade sets to remedy this.