CCSS LITERACY: WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN CLASSROOMS

1. CCSS LITERACY: WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN CLASSROOMS David Liben

2. CONTACT INFO David Libendliben@studentsachieve.net Emily Climer eclimer@studentsachieve.net

3. LETTER FROM A PRINCIPAL “We continue to struggle with the gaps in vocabulary development and background knowledge when students engage in close reading of a complex passage.  We continue to model and assist students navigating through complex informational and fictional text, and hope that the efforts will help them carry skills to the next piece of text they encounter.” 

4. FIVE ESSENTIAL STUDIES • Hernandez 2011 “Double Jeopardy” • Lesnick et al 2010 “Reading on Grade Level in Third Grade: How Is it Related to High School Performance and College Enrollment?” • Fletcher and Lyon 1998 74 percent of third graders who read poorly still struggling in 9th grade • Snow et al 1998 “A person who is not at least a modestly skilled reader by the end of third grade is quite unlikely to graduate from high school” • Juel 1988 Firstgrade reading scores “reliable predictor of later reading scores”

5. WHY? • How is it that tests so early can predict results so many years later? • What are we doing in schools that might be perpetuating these trends? • What are we not doing in schools that might be perpetuating these trends?

6. WHAT ARE NOT THE CAUSES? • Lack of critical thinking • Failure to know or use comprehension strategies • Failure to master the standards

7. WHAT ARE THE CAUSES? • Vocabulary: Failure to grow sufficient vocabulary • Knowledge: Failure to develop wide background knowledge • Fluency: Failure to become a fluent reader

8. WHY VOCABULARY IS SO IMPORTANT • Nearly a century of research (Whipple 1925, NAEP 2012) • Feature of complex text that likely causes greatest difficulty (Nelson et al 2012) • Having to determine the meaning of too many words slows readers up; a far greater problem with complex text • Not knowing words on the page is debilitating • “30 Million Word Gap” • After much research…

9. WHY KNOWLEDGE IS SO IMPORTANT • Similar history of research (Kintsch 1998, Most of John Guthrie's work, Adams 2009…) • Makes sense as knowledge of words and knowledge of the world go together • Take a look at the SAT, ACT and new CC tests

10. WHY FLUENCY IS SO IMPORTANT • Name who you think is one of the wisest, most intelligent people to ever live on our planet. Just one please.

11. DEVELOPING FLUENCY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL • Choose a program that provides abundant, easily implemented materials for all students to learn to decode • Careful about “bait and switch” when students are learning to decode • Assess fluency and address it in Guided Reading and Tier 2/3 interventions; be sure to include prosody • Take a careful look at your Guided Reading in practice not theory • Fluency center • Listening Center • Buddy reading • Poetry center • Fluency instruction is built into close reading

12. DEVELOPING FLUENCY IN MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL • Assess fluency and address in Tier 2/3 intervention; include comprehension • Fluency instruction is part of close reading • Students need to know what fluency is and is not

13. FLUENCY PACKETS • What it is • Why it works • Can be found on Engage NY for grades 2-8 & http://achievethecore.org/ for grades 4-8 (grades 2-3 and 9-10 coming soon!)

14. VOCABULARY AND BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE • This will take more time to catch up than fluency • Thus, the earlier you start the better • The later the grade the more time you will need to devote to this in order for students to catch up

15. VOCABULARY AND BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL • Will not happen without a volume of reading • New basals provide some of this, but not enough • Need to add text sets aligned to basals and/or social studies and science standards • Read Aloud K-2, students read 3-5 • Or, “Assigned Readings”

16. WORD STUDY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL • Why we need word study programs • Programs that provide this • “Words Their Way” • Zaner- Bloser the publisher • “Wordly Wise” from EPS • Word Nerds from Stenhouse Publisher • Online games and puzzles

17. VOCABULARY AND BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE IN MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL • Will not happen without volume of reading • Sufficient volume of reading will not happen without bringing in science and social studies classes • Text sets and gradated text sets • Assigned readings

18. WORD STUDY IN HIGH SCHOOL • Can be built into close reading – see Engage NY • “Wordly Wise” and “Greek and Latin Roots” both from EPS • Zaner-Bloser materials

19. HELP WITH TEXT SETS AND ASSIGNED READINGS ALL GRADES • ELA SCASS Navigating Text Complexity http://www.ccsso.org/Navigating_Text_Complexity.html • ReadWorks • http://www.readworks.org/ • Reading A-Z • http://www.readinga-z.com/ • EBSCO Databases (state membership) • http://cdn.lexile.com/m/cms_page_media/135/RTData_July_13.pdf

20. CLOSE READING • Dual nature of close reading • Numerous examples on our website • Videos for all grades on America Achieves • By itself will not grow the knowledge and vocabulary needed for success with these standards • Needs to be regular weekly part of instruction • Will not work if it is only ELA

21. CONCLUSION • Not easy stuff • Will take time Feel free to email me: dliben@studentsachieve.net & copy eclimer@studentsachieve.net