Literacy Blogs

Blast from the Past Re-issue June 28, 2017 Originally published February 27, 2014 I thought we were past all this, but I've been asked these kinds of questions twice this week. Educators are trying to make sure that they are doing exactly the right thing again--with standards that don't try to prescribe just the right thing. This one made a lot of folks angry the first time around (see the comments), so it seems like it is time to take another look.           I’ve been receiving queries about the CCSS from teachers, principals, and consultants trying to figure out the ...

Teacher question: I am a 4th grade math teacher, and I love CC standards. I’ve been teaching to them and my students are making HUGE gains in math.  My question is about PARCC. I have looked online at the protocol questions and cannot figure out what students will really be expected to do. It looks like they will need to cut, paste, and type. My fear is that the online component of the test is going to skew the results and students will be unnecessarily frustrated trying to show their thinking using "tools". It seems the test is automatically biased towards wealthier ...

My friends at the Thomas Fordham Institute asked that I weigh in on the controversy over the close reading lessons being touted by School Achievement Partners. I wrote a blog for their site and have included a link to it here. You might be interested in my assessment of those lessons and on some of their claims about close reading. Here it is:  Commentary on Gettysburg Address Close Reading Lessons   Since I was posting that article, I thought it would be a good time to provide a couple of other links. This fall, I had an article in American Educator about how ...

What is the biggest educational change promoted by the Common Core?   There are so many choices: kids will be reading more challenging texts; close reading will revolutionize the reading lessons; high school English, science, and social studies teachers will teach disciplinary literacy; there will be greater attention to argument, multiple text, informational text, and writing from sources, and so on?   So which is the biggest change? Perhaps one that you haven’t even thought of…   Past standards were long lists of skills, knowledge, and strategies; lists so endless that they were less standards than curriculum guides. Until CCSS, the typical standards looked like a ...

Teacher question:   It seems that there is a lot of conflicting information coming out about accuracy and complex text. In the April edition of The Reading Teacher, Richard Allington wrote an article pertaining to struggling readers. In this article he says that there are studies showing the benefits to teaching children using text where their accuracy is high. Our district just raised the running record accuracy rate expectation to 95-98% accuracy based on the current research. Yet, your blog postings pull in the opposite direction. How do teachers know what is right and what is wrong? After all, teachers want to ...

My district has decided not to purchase a core reading program since we are now teaching Common Core. Does CCSS really prohibit the use of commercial instructional materials?   No, CCSS neither requires the use of commercial programs nor does it prohibit such use. That is strictly a local decision. So should we use a program?   I’ve long argued that teachers need programs. The development of extensive lesson plans and tracking down appropriate materials each day is overwhelming for most teachers, and it introduces great variability into classroom instruction. One of the things I learned as director of reading in Chicago was that having ...

This question came in from a reader asking specifically about some units proposed by the Education Department in Louisiana. I'm sharing my response with everyone because I think the confusion in Louisiana is general across the nation. Question: The Education Department in Louisiana (Louisiana Believes) has a scope and sequence that teachers can use to teach the CCSS in ELA. Teachers have informed me there are too many standards in each ELA unit to teach in order to effectively teach them. Of the 10 standards in each of the following: reading literature, reading information, and writing, most of them are listed in each ELA ...

Dear Dr. Shanahan, My colleagues have been debating the use of thematic units in the Common Core. Several of them argue that this practice does not fit a "standards based curriculum." They argue that essential questions and enduring understandings need to be specific to the ELA standards. So, for example, a unit with an essential question for a 3rd grade should look something like this: Unit Topic:  Ask and Answer Questions Essential Question: How do readers ask and answers questions from the text? Why is it important to use evidence from the text to support your answer?     The other side on this debate argues that there must be a ...

Teacher question: I, and many of my fellow high school English educators, need some (more) clarification on the 70/30 split. Our state has adopted the PARCC model and our district is implementing the model for the English classes. Under the section "Extended Texts" on the model it reads as follows: 11th A - Literature B - US foundational text (Is this a full-length book taught in the English class?  If 'yes' please specify an example.  If no, please indicated what course/subject would teach this text.) C - American Literature D - Informational (Is this a full-length book taught in the English class?  If 'yes' please specify ...

Teachers, who otherwise are supportive of the common core, often ask me if I think it is fair that they be evaluated on the basis of test scores from tests they have never seen and on content that they are just starting to teach--often without a lot of supporting materials or professional development.   In fact, that most recently happened on Friday when I was in Franklin, TN.   I always give pretty much the same answer. I don't believe the test-based teacher evaluation schemes are ready for prime time, if it were my choice, we wouldn't make this many big changes at the ...