MTLE Elementary Education (Grades K-6) cheat sheet

Five essential components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension; instruction must address all five explicitly.

Phonological awareness is the umbrella skill (sounds of language); phonemic awareness is the narrowest level, manipulating individual phonemes by isolation, blending, segmenting, deletion, and substitution.

Phonics sequence: letter-sound correspondence, then CVC decoding, then blends and digraphs, then vowel teams and silent-e, then multisyllabic patterns (open/closed, r-controlled, vowel pairs).

Fluency has three measurable parts: accuracy, automatic rate (often benchmarked near 90-120 correct words per minute by grade 3), and prosody; repeated reading and paired reading build all three.

The Simple View of Reading: Reading Comprehension = Decoding x Language Comprehension; a weakness in either factor alone produces a comprehension deficit.

Comprehension strategies to model explicitly: predicting, questioning, visualizing, summarizing, monitoring, and making inferences; teach them through gradual release (model, guided practice, independent use).

Text structures: description, sequence, compare-contrast, cause-effect, and problem-solution; recognizing structure improves recall and is tested through graphic organizers.

Writing process stages: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, publishing; conventions (spelling, grammar, punctuation) are taught during editing, not during drafting.

Syllable types: closed (short vowel, CVC), open (long vowel, CV), silent-e, vowel team, r-controlled, consonant-le; use them to divide and decode unknown multisyllabic words.

Place value is base-ten positional: each place is ten times the value of the place to its right; a digit in a given place is worth that digit times the place value.

Operations progress along a trajectory: concrete (manipulatives) to representational (drawings, number lines) to abstract (symbols and algorithms).

Addition and subtraction are inverse operations; multiplication and division are inverse operations; use one to check the other.

Multiplication facts rest on properties: commutative (a x b = b x a), associative ((a x b) x c = a x (b x c)), distributive (a x (b + c) = a x b + a x c), identity, and zero property.

Fraction concepts: a fraction a/b means a parts of size 1/b; equivalent fractions come from multiplying or dividing numerator and denominator by the same nonzero number.

Algorithms for fractions: add or subtract only with like denominators; multiply numerator by numerator and denominator by denominator; divide by multiplying by the reciprocal.

Perimeter is the distance around a figure; area of a rectangle is length x width; volume of a rectangular prism is length x width x height.

Measurement conversions: 1 km = 1,000 m, 1 m = 100 cm, 1 kg = 1,000 g, 1 L = 1,000 mL, 1 hour = 60 minutes, 1 foot = 12 inches, 1 yard = 3 feet, 1 gallon = 4 quarts.

Mean is the sum divided by the number of values; median is the middle value when ordered; mode is the most frequent value; range is maximum minus minimum.

Scientific inquiry cycle: question, hypothesis, controlled experiment with one independent variable, data collection, analysis, and conclusion; the control group receives no treatment.

Matter states: solid has fixed shape and volume, liquid has fixed volume but takes container shape, gas fills its container; changes of state are physical changes.

Physical change alters form but not identity (melting, dissolving, tearing); chemical change produces a new substance and is signaled by color change, gas, precipitate, or heat/light release.

Food chain order: producer (plants, photosynthesis) to consumer (herbivore, then carnivore or omnivore) to decomposer; energy decreases at each trophic level.

Water cycle stages: evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, collection/runoff; the sun drives the cycle.

Earth-Sun-Moon: Earth rotates once per day (day and night), revolves around the Sun once per year (seasons from axial tilt, not distance), and the Moon orbits Earth about monthly (phases).

Force and motion: gravity pulls toward Earth's center, friction opposes motion, a net force changes speed or direction; an object at rest stays at rest without a net force.

Life cycles and heredity: organisms inherit traits from parents; plants and animals have predictable life cycles (seed to seedling to mature plant; egg to larva to adult).

Earth materials and resources: rocks are classified as igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic; soil layers include topsoil, subsoil, and bedrock; renewable resources replenish, nonrenewable do not.

Map skills: cardinal directions (N, E, S, W), intermediate directions, legend/key, scale, compass rose, and grid coordinates; latitude lines run east-west and measure north-south position.

Geography themes: location, place, human-environment interaction, movement, and region.

Types of communities: urban (dense, services), suburban (residential near cities), rural (sparse, agriculture); compare by jobs, housing, and transportation.

Branches of U.S. government: legislative (Congress makes laws), executive (President enforces laws), judicial (courts interpret laws); checks and balances limit each branch.

Levels of government: local (city/county), state, and federal, each with defined powers; the Constitution is the supreme law and the Bill of Rights protects individual freedoms.

Citizenship responsibilities: voting, obeying laws, paying taxes, jury service, and community service; rights and responsibilities are paired.

Economics basics: scarcity forces choices; opportunity cost is the next-best alternative given up; goods are tangible, services are activities; supply and demand set price.

Historical thinking: primary sources are firsthand (letters, artifacts, diaries), secondary sources interpret them (textbooks); use chronology, cause-effect, and perspective to analyze events.

Cultural universals to compare societies: food, shelter, clothing, language, beliefs, government, and arts.