Series

eSpark

15 episodes

eSpark's instructional videos are short, single-skill reading lessons built around one Common Core standard at a time. A friendly animated teacher and a cast of young eSpark Readers walk a class through the skill right on screen: naming a book's author and illustrator, sorting what a photograph tells you from what the words tell you, and using a nonfiction book's pictures to find the key idea of a page. Each runs one to four minutes and reads real photo passages aloud as it goes, so the screen leads the practice instead of describing it. A plain, no-frills way to open or reinforce a foundational reading skill in kindergarten and first grade.

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what this series covers

What eSpark covers

15 episodes in the library, tagged for Pre-K–6th. Heaviest coverage: Reading & Writing (ELA). Between them they line up with 15 distinct standards across 1 framework.

Episodes per grade

Pre-K: 4
K: 7
1st: 4
2nd: 1
3rd: 2
4th: 5
5th: 5
6th: 2

Episodes per subject

Reading & Writing (ELA): 15

Common Core — ELA 15

RI.1.6Distinguish between information provided by pictures or other illustrations and information provided by the words in a text.
RI.1.7Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas.
RI.4.6Compare and contrast a firsthand and secondhand account of the same event or topic; describe the differences in focus and the information provided.
RI.K.6Name the author and illustrator of a text and define the role of each in presenting the ideas or information in a text.
RI.K.7With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the text in which they appear.
RL.1.9Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories.

+ 9 more

RL.2.5Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.
RL.3.5Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections.
RL.3.9Compare and contrast the themes, settings, and plots of stories written by the same author about the same or similar characters.
RL.4.2Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.
RL.4.5Explain major differences between poems, drama, and prose, and refer to the structural elements of poems (e.g., verse, rhythm, meter) and drama (e.g., casts of characters, settings, descriptions, dialogue, stage directions) when writing or speaking about a text.
RL.5.5Explain how a series of chapters, scenes, or stanzas fits together to provide the overall structure of a particular story, drama, or poem.
RL.5.9Compare and contrast stories in the same genre on their approaches to similar themes and topics.
RL.K.3With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.
RL.K.9With prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories.