ELA Guidebooks

ALL Unit Readers include a wide range of publishers’ copyrighted content that requires permission for use such as original texts, book excerpts, photos, magazine articles, and newspaper articles. Education Elements ensures copyright compliance and appropriately manages royalties. They are printed in black and white with color covers. LDOE recommends purchasing one Unit Reader per student. To stay within copyright compliance, the Unit Readers should not be photocopied.

Student Handouts are available for grades 3-12 and can be downloaded for free. Student Handouts include graphic organizers, written exercises, vocabulary lists, activities, graphs, and charts to help students organize their thoughts on the lessons. They have minimal copyrighted content and are licensed to print or photocopy for the classroom. We provide them pre-printed with page numbers for convenience. LDOE recommends providing one copy per student. We also provide a small discount when the Unit Readers and Student Handouts are purchased together.

Grades 3, 4, 5 are newly updated in 2022. The pricing is now available and includes Student Handout and Teacher Resource Guide availability. 

Pricing for the Unit Readers, Student Handouts, Teacher Resource Guides, and Continuous Learning Companions is provided on the Price List page. We provide a small discount when Unit Readers and Student Handouts are purchased together.

The LDOE has created Continuous Learning Guidebook Companions to help you implement Guidebooks in analog or low-tech learning situations. The availability schedule and the LDOE’s implementation guide can be found on the Price List page. The ELA Guidebooks Distance Learning Strong Start: Instructional Materials document can be found here.

The Louisiana Department of Education partners with American Reading Company to provide affordable anchor text classroom bundles.

To access the most recent versions of the grades 3-12 lessons, visit the LDOE’s curriculum hub. Grades K-2 can be accessed using the links below.

Kindergarten

• Chrysanthemum
• From Seed to Plant
• A is for America
• Mama Panya’s Pancakes
• Weather
• The Year at Maple Hill Farm

First Grade

• Mooncake
• Duck for President
• Spiders
• Frogs
• Rumplestiltskin
• Amelia Bedelia

Second Grade

• Cinderella
• Famous Americans
• The Best Place
• Thirsty Planet
• The Ox-Cart Man

ELA Guidebooks Curriculum is a free open-source curriculum created by the Louisiana Department of Education. It was created by teachers for teachers to better support the diverse needs of Louisiana students. The curriculum is available on the Louisiana Curriculum Hub and includes lesson plans and complex and informational texts (text excerpts, poems, photos, and so forth) in addition to the required anchor texts (novels). Louisiana partners with XanEdu to provide affordable Unit Readers, Student Handouts, Teacher Companions, Teacher Resource Guides, and Continuous Learning Companions, and partners with American Reading Company to provide affordable anchor text bundles. LearnZillion Guidebooks is a subscription service that combines the LDOE’s ELA Guidebooks Curriculum with LearnZillions digital and print solutions.

The default binding for both the Unit Readers and Student Handouts is three-hole punched and individually shrink-wrapped. Districts are also able to combine Unit Readers and Student Handouts into one customized workbook. Your district chooses the unit(s), sequence, and binding. Contact Julia Blankenship to learn more about your options to create a perfect bound workbook with perforated sheets. (Alternate binding options are available).