The Reading and Writing Project's Common Core Video SeriesThe Reading and Writing Project provides several exemplar videos for close and critical reading at the Fourth and Fifth grade levels. Consider sharing these videos with your colleagues at staff meetings or during grade level or department meetings. Facilitate collegial conversations about what you notice students in these videos doing. What are the implications for shifting your instruction to the Common Core Reading Standards? The Reading and Writing Project's Text Set Examples Text sets offer students multiple perspectives on a topic so that they can practice the high-level analysis and critical reading work that the Common Core demands. The Reading and Writing Project worked with a group of educators in 2010 to create some text sets. Think of these sets as example text sets or even a place to start in creating your own text sets. There are also some archived text sets available.
Is your District Considering Changing Curriculums to Align to the CCSS?This draft document was published on the Department of Education website for the state of Oregon. The document directs curriculum developers (you!) and publishers to be purposeful and strategic both in what to include and what to exclude in published material. By underscoring what matters most in the Standards, the criteria illustrate what shifts must take place in the next generation of curricula, including paring away elements that distract or are at odds with the Common Core Standards. If your district or department (4-12) is considering changing/altering their curriculum or curriculum resources you may want to spend some time discussing this document.
Kansas State Department of EducationThe Kansas Common Core website has a variety of resources to share. The site offers a wide variety of text complexity materials. The site also offers many grade band resources (K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12). There are also resources designed for administration and literacy coaches. Docs TeachDocs Teach is a really neat free-subscription based website that allows you to easily search thousands of primary sources for use in your classroom. There are also activities available. You can submit sources and activities as well.
Mission Literacy Mission Literacy is a Michigan based website. The site has a wide variety of FREE resources available to educators. Resources include (but are not limited to); introduction materials, tools to analyze your current practices, and a TON of resources broken down by strand. (Reading, Writing, Speaking & Listening, and Language)
State of DelawareThe State of Delaware website has many resources to share. Some highlighted resources are; vertical articulation documents, grade level concept organizers (informational text, literary text, and writing), ELA writing assessments (grade 2-10), and draft model lessons (grade 7). |
The Reading and Writing Project's Fiction Reading AssessmentsThe Reading and Writing Project offers a set of informal reading inventories for narrative texts. These assessments are designed to help teachers identify the level of text students can read independently. The assessments provide an analysis of comprehension, miscues, and, fluency (fluency is only assessed for Levels J-Z). (Note: Level A begins with Kindergarten and Level Z is typically associated with 7th grade) There are also assessments for concepts about print, letter/sound indentifcation, and high- frequency words. The Reading and Writing Project's Common Core Aligned Performance AssessmentsPerformance Assessments engage students in authentic, high-level work that is aligned to curricular standards so that teachers can more carefully plan for instruction that meets students where they are and truly move them forward. These performance assessments were designed to align to particular Common Core State Standards in reading and writing. Viewing these as both pre- and post-assessments can be helpful. Conducting the assessment in whole or in part before teaching the relevant standards, as a measure of what students are capable of prior to your instruction; will then allow you to use the data from this assessment to tailor your instruction to students’ specific strengths and needs. Conducting the same assessment again at the end of the unit will determine the growth of the students and provide an opportunity for you to reflect on your instruction. The overarching goal of asking students to perform in these ways is to give you a clear sense of what students have internalized and what still needs support in regards to the standards-based skills at hand. You will find teacher instructions as well as student-facing instructions and supports; you will also find rubrics that clearly connect the task to the CCSS, and annotated and graded examples of student work. The texts for these tasks are included where we have obtained permissions; in some cases you will need to purchase the relevant texts. The Reading and Writing Project's Benchmarks for Student ProgressIn order to gauge how closely your students' abilities match the expectations of the Common Core, you will need a clear answer to the question, How good is good enough? On the Reading and Writing Project website you will find several benchmark continuums (K-8) that will help you assess how close to grade level individual students are at various points in the year. The benchmark continuums that are available include continuums for; independent reading (K-8) , oral reading (2-8), and primary reading (K-2) The Reading and Writing Project's Additional Assessment ResourcesThe Reading and Writing Project provides some additional assessment resources that allow teachers to monitor/assess; readers using their independent reading books, comprehension proficiencies, and reading volume and stamina. |