This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices. Some of the authors featured on this page include Derek Webb, Laurie Elish-Piper, Diane Massell, Amy Hutchison, Karen Wixson, Tim Jacobbe, P. David Pearson, Susan Tancock, Rachel A. Kopke, and Lisa K. Hawkins.
(2014). Putting Text Complexity in Context: Refocusing on Comprehension of Complex Text, Elementary School Journal. The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts have prompted enormous attention to issues of text complexity. The purpose of this article is to put text complexity in perspective by moving from a primary focus on the text itself to a focus on the comprehension of complex text. We argue that a focus on comprehension is at the heart of the Common Core Standards for ELA and that characteristics of the text represent only one of several factors that influence comprehension. Using both theoretical and empirical sources, we highlight the relationship between texts and tasks. We propose a Text-Task Scenario framework in which the simultaneous consideration of text and task results in a more nuanced and more instructionally responsive estimate of the comprehension of complex text. [More] Descriptors: Core Curriculum, State Standards, English Instruction, Language Arts
(2014). A Commentary on Elementary Teacher Preparation to Teach Statistics, Issues in the Undergraduate Mathematics Preparation of School Teachers. Since the prevalence of data and statistics in the media and workplace has greatly increased over the past few decades, the teaching of statistics in K-12 grades has also increased. This necessitates that teachers be ready to teach statistical concepts throughout the grade levels. The recently adopted Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) contain a large amount of statistics in the middle and high school grades and some at the elementary school level. This paper focuses on the preparation of elementary school teachers. The CCSSM and the Guidelines for assessment and instruction in statistics education (GAISE) report: A preK-12 curriculum framework are examined to illustrate the content covered in the elementary grades. Additionally, two examples of the type of content teachers are expected to know and teach are presented. [More] Descriptors: Statistics, Elementary School Mathematics, Elementary School Teachers, Guidelines
(2014). A Planning Cycle for Integrating Digital Technology into Literacy Instruction, Reading Teacher. With the adoption of the Common Core State Standards by most states, the use of digital tools in literacy and language arts instruction has become of critical importance to educators. These changes produce a need for a better understanding of how literacy and language arts teachers can successfully integrate digital tools into their instruction and the types of knowledge they employ as they do so. Thus, the purpose of this article is to present the Technology Integration Planning Cycle for Literacy and Language Arts to support teachers with integrating digital technology into literacy instruction. This instructional planning cycle identifies seven critical elements that influence literacy teachers' instructional planning involving digital technology and the success or failure of the resulting classroom instruction. A classroom example is provided to illustrate the instructional planning process. [More] Descriptors: Literacy, Technology Integration, Technology Uses in Education, Language Arts
(2014). Alignment: Its Role in Standards-Based Reform and Prospects for the Common Core, Theory Into Practice. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) of 2010 represent a new chapter in the 25-year history of standards-based reforms (SBR). The CCSS attempts to bring the system back to the principles of its founding–more rigorous, focused, academic content and performance expectations collectively embraced by the nation. The new standards depart significantly from existing practice, especially in their high level of cognitive demand, topical range, and curricular sequencing. In this article, we explore what decades of experience have shown about alignment to standards. Most conceive of alignment as a relatively simple technical task of matching curriculum and other tools to the standards. This is a necessary, but only a first, step, and one that is more complex than often imagined. To achieve the far-reaching institutional changes envisioned by SBR, additional and intensive work is necessary to align system incentives, as well as classroom instruction. [More] Descriptors: Alignment (Education), Academic Standards, State Standards, Educational Change
(2014). Improving Clinical Services: Be Aware of Fuzzy Connections between Principles and Strategies, Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. Purpose: This article is a response to Alan Kamhi's treatise on improving clinical practices for children with language and learning disorders by focusing on what is known about learning (see Kamhi, 2014, article in this issue). Method: Descriptive methods are used to discuss general learning principles and the fact that they do not always translate readily into effective language intervention practices. The authors give examples of 2 instances in which popular intervention strategies should have worked but did not. The authors also summarize what they learned about their own approach to contextualized language intervention for teaching priority goals related to narration and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS; National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). Conclusion: Even theoretically sound, well-intentioned, and carefully implemented interventions can result in equivocal outcomes. When they do, careful attention to the evidence and willingness to rethink strategy often serves to right the course. [More] Descriptors: Language Impairments, Learning Disabilities, Intervention, Speech Language Pathology
(2014). Performance-Based Assessment: The Road to Authentic Learning for the Gifted, Gifted Child Today. Performance-based assessment clearly represents an indispensable approach for assessing gifted student learning. Challenging performance tasks allow gifted learners to reveal their considerable intellectual capacity and energy. Through performance tasks, teachers gain insights into a gifted student's true level of capability in a domain of knowledge. As the majority of programs for the gifted employ a project-based approach to curriculum, there is a real need to use a matching assessment model. Performance-based assessment, which includes product assessment, provides just such a match. Moreover, the new assessments for the Common Core State Standards use performance-based assessments as a main format for items as a way to judge the acquisition of higher level skills like developing argument. Thus, the incorporation of performance-based assessment in core content areas would appear a necessary part of designing effective programs for gifted learners and assessing them appropriately. [More] Descriptors: Performance Based Assessment, Academically Gifted, Evaluation Methods, Student Evaluation
(2014). Building Schema: Exploring Content with Song Lyrics and Strategic Reading, Language and Literacy Spectrum. Teaching with song lyrics has many popular variations. The Common Core State Standards discourage pre-teaching, leaving students somewhat adrift. Song lyrics possess the potential to scaffold students' schema in select social studies topics. Using reciprocal teaching (Palinscar & Brown 1984) within the reading workshop students ponder provided song lyrics to activate schema, questions, and a purpose for reading social studies content. By analyzing student work, instructional needs are determined, to strengthen schema and position students to deeper reading with subsequent texts. In this example, students closely read the eighties rock-classic "Cherokee by Europe" (1987) to build a context and create understanding around the Trail of Tears. [More] Descriptors: Teaching Methods, Singing, Social Studies, Music Activities
(2014). The Common Core: A Disaster for Libraries, a Disaster for Language Arts, a Disaster for American Education, Knowledge Quest. This author contends that there never has been a need for the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and there is no evidence that it will do students any good. The Common Core ignores the real problem in American education: poverty. The Common Core movement will be a disaster for libraries and will have a negative impact on nearly every aspect of the educational system. In this article, the author shares his views on why the CCSS will have a negative impact on the educational system. He states that if the public were aware that the CCSS is "a radical untried curriculum overhaul and… nonstop national testing" (Ohanian 2013), the rush to adopt the CCSS would be halted immediately. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Educational Policy, Educational Change, School Libraries
(2014). Tapping the Power of Poetry, Educational Leadership. "I have become increasingly convinced that poetry offers one of the best-and often most underused–resources for developing literacy foundations," writes Timothy Rasinski. Poetry and songs are typically short and easy to learn, provide opportunities for students to play with the sounds of language, and offer an engaging way to learn phonics. In addition, reciting poetry builds reading fluency, one of the foundational skills for reading success identified by both the Common Core State Standards and the 2000 National Reading Panel report. But despite these benefits, many school reading programs have slowly reduced the amount of poetry students learn. Rasinski calls for making poetry and rhythmic texts an integral part of the reading curriculum. [More] Descriptors: Poetry, Literacy Education, Language Skills, Reading Instruction
(2014). Internet Inquiry: Fundamental Competencies for Online Comprehension, Reading Teacher. This article showcases the online research and comprehension competencies students will need to successfully engage with Internet Inquiry. The Common Core State Standards, the research on new literacies skills, and the future of technology-based assessments require educators to fully take on the challenges of meaningfully embedding and supporting innovations in authentic, inquiry-based learning with digital texts. This manuscript focuses on four fundamental competencies that are important for Internet inquiry tasks: 1) generate high-quality inquiry topics, 2) effectively and efficiently search for information, 3) critically evaluate Internet resources, and 4) connect ideas across Internet texts. A rationale, what it looks like in the classroom, what scaffolds are needed to support and guide students to independence are provided for each competency. [More] Descriptors: Inquiry, Internet, Technology Uses in Education, Electronic Publishing
(2014). Complicating the World of Reading Assessment: Toward Better Assessments for Better Teaching, Theory Into Practice. In this article, we share with readers our hopes, fears, and predictions for reading assessment in American schools at a critical policy juncture–the production of new assessments to measure achievement of the Common Core State Standards. It isn't just Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium in play. There is a new stream of progressive-minded pedagogical reform rekindling the fire for higher-order thinking, project-based learning, and learning that transfers to new and different situations and problems. This is a perfect storm–a genuine opportunity to change the course of assessment for accountability and classroom decision-making. Our hope is that readers will find our perspectives useful as we collectively avail ourselves of this unique opportunity. [More] Descriptors: Reading Instruction, Evaluation, Instructional Effectiveness, Instructional Improvement
(2014). Scaffolding High School Students' Reading of Complex Texts Using Linked Text Sets, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. Linked text sets (LTS) offer a promising approach to bring together adolescent students and complex texts, such as those required by the Common Core State Standards, using strategic scaffolding. LTS include a variety of print and media texts that address a guiding question that is meaningful to students such as, "Why is growing up so difficult?" The LTS approach is organized around three phases: Engagement, Exploration, and Expansion. As students progress through the phases, they are able to build their interest, background knowledge, and strategies so they will be ready to read target complex texts. This manuscript illustrates LTS in action in a tenth grade ELA class using a wide variety of print and media texts including the adolescent novel, "Staying Fat" for Sarah Byrnes and the canonical novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird" as target complex texts. [More] Descriptors: Scaffolding (Teaching Technique), High School Students, Learner Engagement, Reading Strategies
(2014). The Textevaluator Tool: Helping Teachers and Test Developers Select Texts for Use in Instruction and Assessment, Elementary School Journal. This article describes TextEvaluator, a comprehensive text-analysis system designed to help teachers, textbook publishers, test developers, and literacy researchers select reading materials that are consistent with the text complexity goals outlined in the Common Core State Standards. Three particular aspects of the TextEvaluator measurement approach are highlighted: (1) attending to relevant reader and task considerations, (2) expanding construct coverage beyond the two dimensions of text variation traditionally assessed by readability metrics, and (3) addressing two potential threats to tool validity: genre bias and blueprint bias. We argue that systems that are attentive to these particular measurement issues may be more effective at helping users achieve a key goal of the new Standards: ensuring that students are challenged to read texts at steadily increasing complexity levels as they progress through school, so that all students acquire the advanced reading skills needed for success in college and careers. [More] Descriptors: Reading Material Selection, Textbooks, Evaluation Methods, Reading Skills
(2014). Teaching Adolescent ELs to Write Academic-Style Persuasive Essays, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. The wide adoption of the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in the U.S. has increased expectations for all teachers to prepare all learners to read and write in academic ways. More knowledge is needed about instructional approaches that may lead adolescent English learners (ELs) to meet this goal. Developing academic literacy practices represents an acute challenge for adolescent ELs. This article describes an eight-week instructional unit in a U.S. urban public high school that investigated the effectiveness of using the genre-based Reading to Learn approach to support 20 adolescent ELs in learning to write academic-style persuasive essays. Results indicated a statistically significant increase from pretest to posttest in the participants' effective use of the linguistic resources that function to create persuasion in an academic way. These findings suggest that the Reading to Learn approach may be one way to support adolescent ELs in developing academic literacy practices. [More] Descriptors: Academic Standards, High School Students, Urban Schools, Writing Instruction
(2014). The Neglected "R" in a Time of Common Core, Reading Teacher. Despite the need for writing competence in and out of school, writing has been deemed the neglected "R" in educational practice. Moreover, many students do not meet expected standards of writing performance. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS), adopted by 45 states, provides an opportunity to change the state of writing instruction on a national scale. This study evaluated the content coverage of the CCSS for writing and language (CCSS-WL). Results indicated that CCSS-WL cover some aspects of writing well, but others deemed important in research not well or not at all. Evidenced-based practices for improving student writing performance to supplement the CCSS-WL are provided. It is hoped that the appropriate curricular and instructional changes targeted toward the content of the CCSS-WL and effective evidence-based instructional practices can elevate writing from the neglected "R" in this time of Common Core. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Core Curriculum, Writing Instruction, Standardized Tests