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NJPEP Home > Standards > Language Arts Literacy (Revised)

STANDARD 3.1 (READING) Grade Eight

Strands with Cumulative Progress Indicators

A. Concepts About Print/Text

  1. Identify and use organizational structures to comprehend information. (e.g., logical order, comparison/contrast, cause/effect, chronological, sequential, procedural text).

B. Phonological Awareness

No additional indicators at this grade level.

C. Decoding and Word Recognition

  1. Distinguish among the spellings of homophones to determine meaning (e.g. cite, site, sight).
  2. Apply spelling and syllabication rules that aid in decoding and word recognition.
  3. Continue to use structural analysis and context analysis to decode new words.
  4. Apply knowledge of word structures and patterns to read with automaticity.

D. Fluency

  1. Read grade-level text orally with high accuracy and appropriate pacing, intonation, and expression.
  2. Read increasingly difficult texts silently with comprehension and fluency.
  3. Apply self-correcting strategies automatically to decode and gain meaning from print both orally and silently.
  4. Adjust reading rate in response to the type of text and level of difficulty (e.g. recreational reading vs. informational reading).

E. Reading Strategies (before, during, and after reading)

  1. Monitor reading for understanding by automatically setting a purpose for reading, making and adjusting predictions, asking essential questions, and relating new learning to background experiences.
  2. Use increasingly complex text guides to understand different text structure and organizational patterns (e.g. chronological sequence or comparison and contrast).

F. Vocabulary and Concept Development

  1. Develop and refine an extended vocabulary through listening and exposure to a variety of texts and independent reading.
  2. Clarify word meanings through the use of a word’s definition, example, restatement, or contrast.
  3. Clarify pronunciations, meanings, alternate word choice, parts of speech, and etymology of words using the dictionary, thesaurus, glossary, and technology resources.
  4. Expand reading vocabulary by identifying and correctly using idioms and words with literal and figurative meanings in their speaking and writing experiences.
  5. Explain relationships between and among words including connotation/denotation, antonyms/synonyms, and words with multiple meanings.

G. Comprehension Skills and Response to Text

  1. Differentiate between fact/opinion and bias and propaganda in newspapers, periodicals, and electronic texts.
  2. Compare and analyze several authors’ perspectives of a character, personality, topic, setting, or event.
  3. Analyze ideas and recurring themes found in texts, such as good versus evil, across traditional and contemporary works.
  4. Locate and analyze the elements of setting, characterization, and plot to construct understanding of how characters influence the progression and resolution of the plot.
  5. Read critically by identifying, analyzing, and applying knowledge of the purpose, structure, and elements of nonfiction and providing support from the text as evidence of understanding.
  6. Read critically by identifying, analyzing, and applying knowledge of the theme, structure, style, and literary elements of fiction and providing support from the text as evidence of understanding.
  7. Respond critically to text ideas and the author’s craft by using textual evidence to support interpretations.
  8. Identify and analyze literary techniques and elements, such as figurative language, meter, rhetorical, and stylistic features of text.
  9. Identify and analyze recurring themes across literary works.
  10. Read critically and analyze poetic forms (e.g., ballad, sonnet, couplet).
  11. Identify and understand the author’s use of idioms, analogies, metaphors, and similes in prose and poetry.
  12. Understand perspectives of authors in a variety of interdisciplinary works.
  13. Interpret text ideas through journal writing, discussion, and enactment.
  14. Demonstrate the use of everyday texts (e.g., train schedules, directions, brochures) and make judgments about the importance of such documents.
  15. Compare and analyze the various works of writers through an author’s study.

H. Inquiry and Research

  1. Produce written and oral work that demonstrates comprehension of informational materials.
  2. Analyze a work of literature, showing how it reflects the heritage, traditions, attitudes, and beliefs of its authors.
  3. Collect materials for a portfolio that reflect personal career choices.
  4. Self-select materials appropriately related to a research project.
  5. Read and compare at least two works, including books, related to the same genre, topic, or subject and produce evidence of reading (e.g., compare central ideas, characters, themes, plots, settings).