Common Core State Standards

Common Core Standards

Learn, program, and implement Common Core in your classroom. Utilise the Resource Correlations tool to detect Common Core-aligned resources from Reading A-Z, the ELL Edition, Writing A-Z, or Science A-Z or view all correlated resource at in one case. Nosotros have as well provided data on fundamental CCSS topics, why they are important, and how Reading A-Z tin exist used to implement elements of CCSS.

Resource Correlations

Foundational Skills

What Are Foundational Skills?

The Mutual Cadre State Standards (CCSS) have identified a gear up of skills that students must chief before they can become fluent readers and comprehend what they are reading. Since these skills are at the very foundation of becoming a proficient reader, they are called foundational skills. These skills are taught somewhat sequentially, with some natural overlapping of skills:

  • Alphabet
  • Concept of impress
  • Phonological awareness
  • Phonics
  • High-Frequency Words
  • Fluency

Common Core State Standards Foundational Skills video

Alphabet

Students need to know the English language is presented using 26 letters. They must be able to recognize, proper name, and form these messages in order to read and write.

Print Concepts

When introducing students to written language they must empathize the basic organization and features of print: read left to right; top to lesser; messages create words and words create sentences; spaces between words; ending and beginning punctuation. Children oft come to empathise these concepts through owning their showtime books.

Phonological Awareness

This foundational skill is nigh recognizing the sounds of linguistic communication. It begins with word awareness and being able to recognize, for example, the number of words that brand upwards a spoken sentence. Secondary mastery of these skills includes recognizing rhyme and syllables. At the nigh detailed level, the phoneme level, students tin can discern the sounds that make up a give-and-take. They can segment the sounds within a word, blend sounds together to make a word, and substitute sounds to make new words.

Phonics

Students must match a unit of sound (a phoneme) to the letter of the alphabet or letters that make the audio. Separating the written word into its individual sounds and blending the individual sounds of letters to make words is the foundation of reading.

High-Frequency Word Recognition

Students must be able to recognize and read a collection of loftier-frequency words by sight and practise so with increasing automaticity.

Fluency

Students must be able to read and comprehend text on-level – accurately, at the appropriate rate and with the correct expression. This is best accomplished by repeated readings of text passages of increasing complexity while tracking the reading rate and accuracy.

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Why Are Foundational Skills Of import?

Students must master foundational skills before they can become fluent readers and comprehend text. Foundational skills didactics is the first reading didactics that students should receive. Each skill should be consistently reinforced. Foundational skills are essential for students to acquire how to both read and write. They are the skills that help them to decode unknown words and use discussion knowledge to embrace more circuitous writing across varying levels and genres.

How Do Reading A-Z Resources Support Instruction Foundational Skills?

Reading A-Z provides easy access to a rich collection of resources necessary to help all students develop potent Foundational Skills in reading. Many of these resource are available in printable and projectable formats.

  • Alphabet Books and activities build skills in letter naming, recognition, and formation.
  • Books, lesson plans, and activities address all phonics and phonological awareness elements.
  • High-Frequency Word Books and the Most Mutual Give-and-take Flashcards provide students the opportunity to work with words in isolation and in context.
  • Leveled Fluency Passages and Reader'due south Theater Scripts support practicing fluency.

Likewise available:

  • Shared Reading Books and lessons teach foundational skills, including concepts of print and a multifariousness of reading strategies.
  • 1,000+ Leveled Books and lesson plans support reading at 29 different levels.

Informational Text

What Is Informational Text?

The Common Cadre State Standards (CCSS) defines "advisory text" every bit a broad category of nonfiction resources, including: biographies; autobiographies; books about history, social studies, science, and the arts; technical texts (including how-to books and procedural books); and literary nonfiction. The CCSS stress the importance of focused instruction using informational text with students in the elementary grades.

Watch the Common Core State Standards Informational Text video

Informational text is designed to make it easier for the reader to find information. This includes using such heart-catching features as section heads, bold-faced terms, table of contents, glossary, captioned photos, art, and info-graphics (graphs, tables, charts and diagrams, etc.)

Watch the Common Core State Standards Visual Devices video

When selecting informational resource for children, text quality should be judged for its accurateness, the expertise and credibility of the writer, and the currency of the information presented. The developmental ceremoniousness of the writing, clarity and directness of the language should also be considered.

Lookout the February webinar on Advisory Text: You will need to create a free Go To Meeting account to see the webinar video.

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Why Is Increasing The Reading Of Advisory Text Of import?

Traditional G-6 reading instruction has ever relied heavily on literature and fictional text. Studies show that only 7-xv% of classroom time is spent studying informational text. Yet past 6th grade, most of what students are required to read is nonfiction. What's more than, 80% of all adult reading is devoted to expository or nonfiction text.

If students are to ameliorate comprehend science, social studies, and math text - likewise equally run across the common cadre reading and writing requirements for graduation - then we need to increase their exposure to informational texts early in their formal schooling.

Teaching students the skills and strategies to successfully read and comprehend informational text is critical to their hereafter success in higher didactics and the workplace.

The English Language Arts [ELA] Common Core State Standards recommend more than reading of informational text with a ratio of literary to advisory equally follows:

Grade Span Literary Informational
K-four fifty% 50%
5-8 45% 55%
9-12 30% seventy%

How Does Reading A-Z Address the Need for Informational Text?

Reading A-Z offers an extensive collection of 800+ nonfiction books, including informational texts in a variety of genres covering an assortment of topics. All books are available in both printable and projectable formats, and the Learning A-Z Text Leveling System ensures books gradually increase in complication over 29 levels.

  • Leveled Books with lessons target specific skills and strategies along with supporting worksheets, a graphic organizer, a fix of discussion cards and a comprehension quiz.
  • Common Core Supplements for both nonfiction and fiction Leveled Books accost specific key shifts of Mutual Core instruction.

Besides bachelor:

  • Shared Reading nonfiction books ensure early on readers work with informational texts.
  • Our Close Reading Packs contain a large selection of informational text to back up reading multiple, short texts closely.
  • Visual Devices feature explicit educational activity on text elements, such as graphs, charts, maps, schedules, or other visual texts.
  • Content Area Reading organizes leveled books into featured groups of common content expanse topics.

Text Complexity

What Is Text Complication?

Text complication is what the term implies: how challenging is the material for the child at their specific grade level. The Common Core Country Standards employ three factors to determine the complication of a text:

  • Qualitative Measures
  • Quantitative Measures
  • Considerations relating to the reader and task

Watch the Common Core State Standards Text Complexity video

Qualitative measures examine text attributes that can but be evaluated past the person that is reading the book or passage. The reader is required to consider such factors every bit:

    Levels of meaning: Is the purpose explicitly stated or is it vague? Does information technology have a single level of meaning vs. multiple purposes?

    Clarity and conventions of language: Is the language articulate or is it vague and purposefully misleading? Is the language contemporary and familiar or is it unfamiliar and archaic? Is the text conversational or academic? Is there broad use of figurative language, idiomatic expressions, etc.? Is the text cohesive or does it lack cohesion?

    Knowledge demands: Is it a single-themed text and relatively simple as opposed to multiple-themed and complex? Does the text deal with common everyday experiences or does it present experiences that are likely vastly different from those of the reader? Is the text presented from single or multiple perspectives? Are there frequent changes in the setting? How many, if any, references to other texts does the text contain?

    Structure: How is the text organized - chronologically or in another logical mode? Is it randomly arranged with complex and loosely connected content? Does the structure and system make sense? Are sections and features clearly labeled? Is the text gratis from unnecessary distractions?

    Visual device complication: Are graphical devices relatively elementary or are they complex? Are the graphics more "for show" rather than necessary to help the student sympathize the material being presented?

Quantitative measures are what publishers traditionally relied upon to determine the difficulty of a text. There are dozens of formulas used to effigy text difficulty. Many of these formulas consider just two factors: sentence length and the number of difficult or unfamiliar words or they look at judgement length and syllable count. Needless to say, these factors are fairly limiting when it comes to determining the complexity of a text.

Considerations relating to the reader and tasks is the vital third component. Each reader brings unlike skills, background, and motivation to the act of reading. For example, a pupil who is interested in the topic beingness read is likely to bring more background knowledge to the reading chore and want to acquire more.

The importance of the assignment itself tin besides influence the reading activeness. Skimming a volume or article for a key piece of information or reading leisurely places less demand on the reading chore than if a pupil is preparing for an exam, assembling a slice of equipment, or reading for long-term retention.

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Why Is Text Complexity An Issue?

Over the past 50 years the text that students take encountered in eye and high school had decreased in complication, while textbooks in colleges, universities, and the workplace have become more than complex. As a result too many students graduating from loftier school lack sufficient skills required to cover the text they encounter in college and the workplace. The authors of the Common Core State ELA Standards have taken steps to ensure that greater attending is paid to gradually increasing the complexity of the text students read and comprehend equally they move through schoolhouse.

How Does Reading A-Z Address Text Complexity?

Reading A-Z offers books designed and written to 29 levels of difficulty. Great care has been taken to analyze each and every book using multiple quantitative and qualitative factors. Teachers tin can present these materials with conviction, knowing that each leveled volume meets the required Mutual Core standards.

  • Read virtually our Text Leveling Organisation to acquire how we accurately and reliably measure out the complexity of a text.
  • Our Level Correlation Nautical chart shows how Learning A-Z Levels compare to other mutual leveling systems.

Close Reading

What Is Close Reading?

Close Reading is a central focus of the Mutual Core State Standards (CCSS). It requires students to get truly involved with the text they are reading. The purpose is to teach them to notice features and language used by the writer. Students will be required to think thoroughly and methodically about the details in a text.

Watch the Common Core - 5 Tips for Close Reading video

Close reading isn't the old "students read, teacher questions and evaluates" model. While it is initially modeled and so guided by a teacher, over time the teacher releases the responsibility of close reading to the pupil. Teachers assistance students determine how a text is organized, and understand the outcome of the author'southward word choice in a sure passage. Close reading goes "deeper than the text". It mines what is under the surface of the words. Students eventually evaluate or critique what is written.

Watch the Common Core State Standards Close Reading video

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Why Is Close Reading Important?

Close reading teaches students to seek out micro-levels of understanding. It'due south more being able to retell a story or provide a main idea or supporting details from a text. When students are taught to read a text closely they become more skilled at locating testify within a sentence or a paragraph or a page of a text or story. Then orally or in writing, they can justify answers to text-dependent questions based on show. These are basic shut reading skills as outlined past the Common Cadre English language language arts Standards that every student must know to succeed in higher and career.

As educators, we're concerned about students' lack of comprehension, especially of advisory text. Today many students are barely grazing the surface of the text they read. They typically don't accept the fourth dimension to sympathise and brand connections to the text. Shut reading is beingness emphasized by the CCSS to ensure today'south students dig deeper into the text, and start making those connections.

How Can Reading A-Z Resource Support the Teaching of Close Reading?

Reading A-Z's close reading materials draw students into the text and get them involved in examining the facts and details.

  • Close Reading Packs offer multiple re-readings of a curt text for dissimilar purposes in order to find show to answer a Key Question.
  • More than i,500 Leveled Books at 29 levels of difficulty enable teachers to provide developmentally appropriate texts for students to practise the skills and strategies of shut reading.
  • Graphic organizers and comprehensive lesson plans for leveled books support shut reading instruction and practise.
  • Shared Reading Books assist our youngest learners brainstorm reading text more closely. Each five-day lesson programme includes a section devoted to text-dependent questions. A 2d projectable version of each volume includes grapheme prompts. The characters ask the reader to complete tasks and interact with the book.
  • Comprehension Skill Packs provide direct and explicit instruction on upwardly to 16 different comprehension skills to support student'southward close reading of any text.
  • Our Paired Books lessons include a set of text-dependent questions that crave students to closely read and compare and contrast two related texts.

Text-dependent Questions

What Are Text-dependent Questions?

Text-dependent questions are those that can merely be answered past referring back to the text being read. The Mutual Core State Standards (CCSS) require students to "read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it. They must also cite pertinent evidence from the text when responding orally or when writing an answer to questions near the text. Students tin can no longer rely solely on prior knowledge or personal experience.

Watch the Common Core State Standards Text-dependent Questions video

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Why Are Text-dependent Questions Important?

Good text-dependent questions guarantee careful investigation of text. They will often lead students to discover something of import that may have been overlooked the first time they read the text. They guide students to swoop deeper into the text, and to respond or identify the core understandings or insights that are essential.

Text-dependent questions can be used by the teacher to promote discussion and aid students to understand even improve what they are reading. They can be used to first student discussions and give students opportunities to discuss the text with each other and phonation their opinions.

The Common Core ELA Standards require moving instruction abroad from generic questions such as, "What is the main idea and three supporting details? to questions that require students to analyze what they are reading. An instance of a text-dependent question would exist something like "The article describes the male person emperor penguin as 'tough'. Give two pieces of information from the commodity that demonstrates how they are tough.

How Does Reading A-Z Support Education/Using Text-Dependent Questions?

Text-dependent questions that students respond to verbally or in writing can exist found in a multitude of supporting instructional resources across Reading A-Z.

  • Leveled Volume Common Core Lesson Supplements incorporate a department devoted to text-dependent questions.
  • Every Leveled Volume has a complete guided reading lesson program, comprehension quiz, and gear up of discussion cards (levels A-Z2). Each give-and-take card is tagged with the specific reading skill it targets, such every bit:
    • Compare and contrast
    • Cause and consequence
    • Make inferences/describe conclusions
    • Analyze and evaluate
  • All Shared Reading Books come with a five-solar day lesson plan, with a section devoted to text-dependent questions. Each Shared Reading Projectable Book with Prompts offers opportunities for readers to complete tasks and interact with the projectable tools to answer text-dependent questions.
  • A text-dependent Cardinal Question is the focus of every Close Reading Pack. Multiple re-reads of the text encourage students to closely read in order to answer the Primal Question.
  • Our Paired Books lessons include a set of text-dependent questions that require students to closely read and compare and contrast two related texts.

Academic Vocabulary

What Is Academic Vocabulary?

The Mutual Core State Standards (CCSS) ascertain academic vocabulary words as the words that are traditionally used in academic dialogue and text. Specifically, it refers to words that are not necessarily common or that children would encounter in conversation. These words oftentimes relate to other more familiar words that students use. For example, rather than watch, discover. They are likewise words that aid students understand oral directions and classroom instructional dialog. They also assistance students to embrace text across different content areas- including math, science, and social studies/history.

Vocabulary words are oft categorized into 3 tiers.

Tier i words: These words are basic vocabulary or the more than common words well-nigh children will know. They include loftier-frequency words and unremarkably are not multiple meaning words.

Tier two words: Less familiar, however useful vocabulary establish in written text and shared between the teacher and educatee in conversation. The Common Core Country Standards refers to these as "general academic words." Sometimes they are referred to as "rich vocabulary." These words are more precise or subtle forms of familiar words and include multiple meaning words. Instead of walk for example, saunter could be used. These words are found across a diversity of domains.

Tier iii words: CCSS refers to these words as "domain specific;" they are critical to understanding the concepts of the content taught in schools. Generally, they have depression frequency employ and are limited to specific knowledge domains. Examples would include words such as isotope, peninsula, refinery. They are best learned when educational activity specific content lessons, and tend to exist more common in informational text.

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Why Is Education Academic Vocabulary Important?

Vocabulary'southward link to comprehension has been extensively researched and the importance of directly instruction vocabulary has been firmly established. Unfortunately, in recent years the instruction of vocabulary has not been frequent or systematic in schools. The Common Core includes vocabulary instruction and reinforcement in the English Language Arts [ELA] standards. The standards dealing with vocabulary focus on "understanding words and phrases, their relationships, and their nuances and on acquiring new vocabulary."

The Common Core ELA standards stress the demand to provide straight and explicit instruction for bookish vocabulary. When didactics vocabulary, it is best not to brand students look upwards words in a dictionary or a glossary and write out the definition. They unremarkably pick the first selection, and it often isn't the correct one.

We recommend the 6 steps that Robert Marzano presents in his book Building Academic Vocabulary (2004).

Step ane: Instructor provides a description, explanation or case of the new term
Stride 2: Students restate an explanation of the new term in their ain words
Footstep 3: Students create a nonlinguistic representation of the term
Step four: Students periodically do activities that aid add to their knowledge of the vocabulary terms
Footstep five: Students are periodically asked to discuss terms with ane another
Step 6: Students are periodically involved in games that allow them to review terms

How Does Reading A-Z Support Teaching Academic Vocabulary?

Each Leveled Book Mutual Core Lesson Supplement features bookish vocabulary words important to discussing the volume. Words are listed whether they are used in the book or in the lesson plan to ensure students can be successful with the didactics.

Writing

What Is Writing?

The Common Core Country Standards (CCSS) require students to exist able to write effectively and proficiently. In order to ensure college and career readiness, students must be able to write for a variety of purposes, cite show from text, research and present knowledge on a topic, and produce and publish writing in a variety of formats.

The common cadre standards focus on iii writing categories:
one. explanatory/informational
2. narrative
3. opinion/statement

Writing assignments are not what they used to exist. Not so long agone, many teachers had students concentrate on fictional or personal narrative writing. Very niggling attention was paid to how they interpreted and wrote informational text.

However, key shifts in writing objectives have been made by CCSS. Students must at present be able to confidently write about a text. They must exist able to compose more all-encompassing pieces where they have a chance to write it, read it, review it and revise it. Wherever possible, applied science needs to be a part of the teaching as well — whether it is for the writing itself or to access multiple sources of information.

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Why Is Writing Of import?

Studies evidence that learning to present of import information in an organized piece of writing helps students generate a greater understanding of a text. In addition, it helps to better both their reading comprehension and their writing skills. With the implementation of the Mutual Core English language language arts Standards, students volition be required to use writing skills to incorporate the skills of citing testify from text. They will larn to clarify content using correct English language rules of grammar. They volition be encouraged to develop a highly academic and rich vocabulary, and to study findings on the subjects they choose to cover.

Writing virtually texts will as well bolster overall comprehension and significant behind the text through building cognition about a topic or reflection. This includes written responses to text-dependent questions.

For example, in course iv of the common core writing standards (W.four.1), students should be able to write stance pieces on topics or texts, supporting a signal of view with reasons and data. In brusque, it says that students must be able to do the following:

  • Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an stance, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the author's purpose
  • Provide reasons supported by facts and details
  • Link opinion and reasons using words and phrases
  • Provide a concluding statement or section related to the opinion presented

How Do Reading A-Z'due south Resources Support The Teaching Of Writing?

Reading A-Z books offer excellent models of how to organize ideas in order or to explicate or persuade with one's writing.

  • Leveled Books from various genres or text types provide models of writing explanatory/informational, narrative, or opinion/argument texts.
    • To Drill or Non to Drill? is an instance of pro/con writing.
    • How to Make Ice Foam is an instance of a how-to book.
    • Wordless Books for titles from levels aa-J provide writing practice for even the youngest readers.
  • All Leveled Book quizzes for books level C and above feature at least one extended response question. Students must write an answer to the open-ended question using sound reasoning.
  • Writer's Responses for select titles from levels E-Z encourage students to reverberate on the deeper significant of each volume read. Prompts support writing that applies, synthesizes, or evaluates a book'due south indelible understanding.
  • Verse Writing Lessons include direct instruction for xi types of poetry. Each lesson includes instruction details, and examples of each poesy blazon with scaffolded writing worksheets for the student.
  • Common Core Supplements and Close Reading Packs require students to find prove from multiple places within a text or from multiple texts to write an respond to a Key Question.

Cess

What Is An Assessment?

An assessment is any formal or informal measurement of student progress used to improve overall learning. Every bit of the 2014-2015 school twelvemonth, almost of the current formal stop-of-yr state tests will be replaced by a new exam created past one of ii consortiums that evaluates students against the fix of new Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

The common core assessments created by the consortiums will mensurate both pupil achievement and progress on the CCSS. These assessments include:

  • Interim/criterion assessments
  • Determinative assessments
  • Performance assessments
  • Summative assessments

The criteria for these new Mutual Core ELA assessments will include:

  • An intense focus on the close examination of text
  • Mastery of complex literary and advisory reading
  • The ability to infer meaning from what is read
  • The ability to both answer text-dependent questions and build arguments using evidence from the text

Students will be required to demonstrate a greater depth of noesis within subject areas, cite evidence from the text in support of answers, and use technology to answer certain questions.

The types of assessment formats volition be enhanced from traditional land testing items (such as multiple option questions) to also include operation tasks, engineering science items, and synthetic responses. In improver, writing about texts will be required to improve overall comprehension and meaning behind the text.

Iii writing types will specifically be covered inside the new CCSS framework: explanatory/informational, narrative, and opinion/argument.

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Why Are Assessments Of import?

The purpose of CCSS and mutual core standards assessments are to ensure that the expectations and objectives at each form level are the same beyond every school, district, and state. Withal, the standards withal allow educators the flexibility to teach in ways that meet the needs of their detail student population. The CCSS assessments volition require students to utilise learning in more complex means. This volition help students to improve ready for both college and for making their fashion in the workplace.

Reports will be supplied to teachers and administrators, providing specific information on how students are progressing in meeting CCSS requirements. These requirements include: demonstrating independence; edifice strong content knowledge; responding to the varying demands of audience, chore, purpose, and discipline; comprehension and critiques; valuing testify; using technology and digital media strategically and capably; and understanding other perspectives and cultures.

How Practice Reading A-Z Resources Support the New CCSS Assessments?

The vast drove of resources at Reading A-Z supports a range of skills that many students will be assessed on nether the Common Core standards. Every resources listed as support for a particular Mutual Cadre key topic volition assist make students more successful.

  • More than ane,500 Leveled Books have quizzes with a range of text dependent multiple-choice and extended response questions. The variety in cognitive rigor, depth of knowledge, and question types allows educators to measure an array of reading skills.
  • Criterion Books and Passages with accompanying Running Records provide teachers with assessment tools at every level to decide the developmentally appropriate reading level for each student and to monitor progress.