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Common Core Standards
English Language Arts Alignment

Heroes Made aligns with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts (ELA) by embedding SEL-focused reading, writing, speaking, and comprehension activities. Our platform ensures that students develop both literacy and social-emotional skills simultaneously, reinforcing comprehension, communication, and critical thinking.

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Reading 

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Common Core Standards English Language Arts Alignment

Developing comprehension, interpretation, and critical thinking through stories and texts. Heroes Made enhances reading skills by integrating engaging narratives that promote SEL themes while reinforcing fundamental reading comprehension strategies.

​​Key Ideas and Details:

  • Ask and answer questions about key details in a text – Encourages critical thinking and recall through interactive discussions and activities.

  • Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson – Reinforces sequencing, summarization, and comprehension.

  • Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details – Helps students connect emotionally to stories and analyze character behaviors.

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Craft and Structure:

  • Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses – Encourages emotional literacy and vocabulary development.

  • Explain major differences between books that tell stories and books that give information, drawing on a wide reading of a range of text types – Strengthens analytical thinking and genre differentiation.

  • Identify who is telling the story at various points in a text – Enhances perspective-taking and social awareness.

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Integration of Knowledge and Ideas:

  • Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events – Supports visual literacy and emotional connection.

  • Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories – Encourages empathy and critical thinking.

 

Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity:

  • With prompting and support, read informational texts appropriately complex for grade 1 – Scaffolds independent reading and comprehension.

Literature

Reading

Building knowledge through comprehension of nonfiction texts. Heroes Made supports informational text comprehension by incorporating real-life SEL scenarios, helping students develop fact-based reasoning and critical thinking.

 

Key Ideas and Details:

  • Ask and answer questions about key details in a text – Encourages inquiry-based learning and comprehension.

  • Identify the main topic and retell key details of a text – Strengthens summarization and main idea identification.

  • Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text – Develops cause-and-effect reasoning.

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Craft and Structure:

  • Ask and answer questions to help determine or clarify the meaning of words and phrases in a text – Encourages vocabulary development.

  • Know and use various text features (e.g., headings, tables of contents, glossaries, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text – Develops research and information-seeking skills.

  • Distinguish between information provided by pictures or other illustrations and information provided by the words in a text – Strengthens visual literacy and interpretation.

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Integration of Knowledge and Ideas:

  • Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas – Enhances comprehension and engagement.

  • Identify the reasons an author gives to support points in a text – Develops critical thinking and argument analysis.

  • Identify basic similarities and differences between two texts on the same topic (e.g., in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures) – Encourages comparative analysis.

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Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity:

  • With prompting and support, read informational texts appropriately complex for grade 1 – Encourages engagement with grade-appropriate nonfiction.

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Common Core Standards English Language Arts Alignment

Informational Text

Reading

Developing phonics, fluency, and decoding abilities. Heroes Made strengthens early reading skills through interactive, SEL-themed texts and guided phonics activities.​

 

Print Concepts:

  • Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print – Reinforces book navigation skills.

 

Phonological Awareness:

  • Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes) – Strengthens phonemic awareness.

 

Phonics and Word Recognition:

  • Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words – Supports early literacy development.

 

Fluency:

  • Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension – Builds confidence in independent reading.

Foundational Skills

Common Core Standards English Language Arts Alignment

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Speaking & Listening

Encouraging effective communication and collaborative discussions. Heroes Made reinforces speaking and listening skills by integrating group discussions, storytelling, and role-playing exercises.​

 

Comprehension and Collaboration:

 

  • Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 1 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups – Develops active listening and engagement.

  • Ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media – Strengthens comprehension through verbal processing.

  • Ask and answer questions about what a speaker says in order to gather additional information or clarify something that is not understood – Encourages inquiry-based learning.

 

Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas:

  • Describe people, places, things, and events with relevant details, expressing ideas and feelings clearly – Enhances descriptive storytelling and SEL reflection.

  • Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings – Reinforces multimodal learning.

  • Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation – Encourages proper sentence construction and clarity.        

Common Core Standards English Language Arts Alignment

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Language

Developing vocabulary, grammar, and effective language use. Heroes Made reinforces vocabulary acquisition and language comprehension through interactive lessons and storytelling.​

 

Conventions of Standard English:

  • Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking – Strengthens writing fluency and speech clarity.

  • Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing – Reinforces fundamental grammar rules.

 

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use:

  • Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 1 reading and content, choosing flexibly from an array of strategies – Expands vocabulary and word comprehension.

  • With guidance and support from adults, demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meanings – Enhances contextual understanding of language.

  • Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts, including using frequently occurring conjunctions to signal simple relationships (e.g., because) – Strengthens word choice and sentence structure.

Common Core Standards English Language Arts Alignment

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You Can Request the Heroes Made Case Study and Alignment Charts

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