ELA Content Standards and Resources

English Language Arts & Literacy Coordinator: Stephanie Swigart |  406-444-0736

Return to the K-12 Content Standards home page.

Grade Level Standards 

Tech Directors: To access a machine readable version of the official Montana Content Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy, please visit the IMS Global CASE Network site.  Create a free login, select Montana Office of Public Instruction, and view or download the standards.  The CASE version of the standards can be uploaded to student information systems, curriculum mapping programs, and a variety of other uses. Learn more about the CASE Network CASE Network FAQ

 
 

Professional Learning and Development

Virtual Synchronous

  • 2021 Virtual Indian Education for All Best Practices Conference: May 15 and 16.  Each day will offer a keynote address from a high-profile Indigenous leader, followed by a 60-70 minute interactive presentation by an IEFA expert(s).  The conference will focus on the Essential Understandings, tribal resiliency, and honoring the accomplishments and perspectives of Montana’s first peoples. This event will be provided FREE of charge. Additional details available on the registration form! For further questions, contact Joan Franke at 444-3694 or jfranke@mt.gov or visit the Montana Office of Public Instruction Indian Education for All Upcoming Events and PD Opportunities page. 

  • Worlds Apart but Not Strangers: Holocaust Edcuation and IEFA: Join the Montana Network of Holocaust/IEFA Educators in Billings for its 10th year of offering Worlds Apart But Not Strangers: Holocaust Education and Indian Education for All. Worlds Apart But Not Strangers is a seminar for educators of upper elementary through college students. Held on the campus of MSU-Billings, this intensive, inquiry-based seminar bridges past and present. Participants build background knowledge about the Holocaust and IEFA and gain writing-based classroom strategies for creating community and processing difficult information. This will be an in-person opportunity. Place-based, learner-centered experiences include: testimony from Holocaust survivors and their descendants; tribal experts discussing federal Indian policy, past and present; visit to Beth Aaron Synagogue; visit to Northern Cheyenne and Crow lands. This seminar is offered at NO COST to educators! Program participants are also eligible to apply for mini-grants up to $1,000 for classroom projects. More information and a link to apply.

The Teacher Learning Hub 

Virtual Asynchronous

Looking for free, quality, online professional learning? Need more renewal units?  Take a look at the Teacher Learning Hub for a variety of online learning courses.

Writing

Reading

ELA Newsletter

Assessments

Our Montana Comprehensive Assessment System (MontCAS) is carefully designed to help all stakeholders in Montana provide the best possible equal, fair, and quality education for our Montana students. The Montana Assessment Roadmap outlines the entire process and suite of what our statewide assessment provides for eductaion in Montana. 

Formative Assessment

  • Tools for Teachers- Teacher created lesson plans aligned to our MT standards for math and ELA grades 3-12. Includes Formative Assessment Teacher resources and strategies. Provides next steps after administering Interim Assessments with Connections Playlists. 
  • SmART Smarter Balanced Annotated Response Tool- Better understand how student writing is scored on Smarter Balanced assessments and support writing instruction in your school or classroom. Browse a range of response types, explore interactive scoring rationales and rubrics, and practice scoring on your own or with colleagues.
  • Smarter Balanced Content Explorer Site: Learn more about Smarter Balanced's blueprints, claims, targets, standards, and sample items.

Interim Assessments

SBAC Interim Assessments- grades 3-12

Summative

Learn more about ELA Summative Assessments on the Statewide Assessment Page:

Helpful Links

Smarter Balanced Resources: Montana

MontCAS Testing Portal

Family Roadmaps to the Montana English Language Arts Content Standards

Involve stakeholders in student learning by providing parents and families with these grade level guides to the content standards.  Each grade level document provides a clear and easy to understand overview of what their child will learn and do in their grade.  It also includes a side by side comparison of vertical alignment with the grade below and grade above to help parents and students understand the subtle differences in ELA skill progression as it is outlined in the standards. Each grade level document is concluded with a section on specific supports families can and should do to help their student meet their grade level ELA goals. 

Kindergarten

Grade One

Grade Two

Grade Three

Grade Four

Grade Five

Grade Six

Grade Seven

Grade Eight

High School

Spotlight: EdReady Montana English Support 

EdReady Montana has been serving schools in Montana now for the last 2 years to help students become critical readers and effective writers, for standardized test prep, and supplementing classroom ELA instruction.  In that time, we’ve worked with hundreds of schools and teachers.  We are here to help educators who are asking important questions as they emerge from the past year and a half of dealing with interruptions to their teaching and student learning and are starting to ask the following question…

How can I use EdReady English to tackle preparing students for ACT, College English readiness as well as shoring up student’s skills for writing across the curriculum?

The team at EdReady Montana is ready to help you with any of the following solutions:

  • this Spring to bridge the gap to next year and help avoid erosion of English skills or prepare students for college-level reading and writing.
  • this Summer to address gaps in learning and prepare for their next level of English.
  • next Fall to efficiently identify gaps and weaknesses then help teachers supplement instruction by utilizing resources within the program to address them.
  • More than one or all of the above?

Not only is the program available online to serve a variety of access needs for students and teachers, but our team of Montana educators is here to help you plan, set-up, adopt and efficiently implement the program.  Remember that all professional development can also be used for CEUs.  Contact us today and we can work together to help get you going this spring, summer or have you ready to go on day one of next fall!  

Fill out this online form to set up a time to learn more!

Visit the EdReady Montana website  to read about how others are using the program or contact them support@montanadigitalacademy.org | 406-203-1812 for more information.

Find a Book MetaMetrics Reading Challenge

Find a Book is a free, fun and easy way to identify books based on a child's reading level (Lexile© measure) and interests.  Find a Book has over 300,000 titles, making it the perfect tool to keep your child reading all summer long.

How it Works:

  1. Go to Find a Book & enter your child's lexile measure or grade level.
  2. Pick books that match the child's interests.
  3. View & refine the search results to create the perfect book list for your child!

Summer Reading Challenge Flyer  • Summer Reading Challenge Spanish Flyer

More Reading Challenges & Resources

Summer Reading Program at Your Public Library - Library Directory

Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge

Sync Audiobooks

Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Program

ACT Academy: ACT Academy offers free summer math and English activities for grades 3-12. 

 

For more summer learning opportunities for students, please visit the Summer Learning Opportunities page

English Language Arts & Literacy Coordinator  

Stephanie Swigart 

stephanie.swigart@mt.gov

406-444-0736


Return to the K-12 Content Standards home page.