Elementary School (K-5) – Center for Standards, Assessment, and Accountability

‘Both and’ Literacy Instruction K-5: A Proposed Paradigm Shift for the Common Core State Standards ELA Classroom

This article proposes a language arts curriculum congruent to the new, English/language arts (ELA) college and career ready standards, particularly to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The idea of behind “‘both and’ literacy instruction” is that all of the following elements are needed for students to form a coherent literacy experience:

Foundational literacy practices: alphabetic knowledge, phonological processing, vocabulary, fluency
Reading comprehension: the role of read alouds/shared reading of grade-level text, building knowledge, attending to syntax
High volume of reading: using the technique called Guided Reading with Accountable Independent Reading

The purpose of this article is “to help teachers determine which aspects fo their current practice are inherently aligned with the CCSS and which aspects of existing practices must be added to, adapted or shifted” (p. 1).

Butterfly Unit: Accessing Complex Text in the Primary Grades

This kindergarten class of English language learners (ELLs) demonstrates Lily Wong Fillmore’s guidance in how teachers can support students in acquiring and using academic language and working successfully with complex text. These ELL kindergartners have engaged in a unit studying butterflies where academic vocabulary, language structure, and keys to unlocking the meaning of complex text have been deeply embedded into their daily learning. This video is on sharing a reading/writing lesson which celebrates text complexity. Key points include: (1) Each day select text to amplify as part of instructional conversations and (2) Choose text that has complex structure but also that holds the essence of your lesson/activity, or some really pivotal information.

Effects of Interim Assessments on Student Achievement: Evidence From a Large-Scale Experiment

The study uses data from a 2010-2011 school-level randomized experiment of 70 Indiana public schools to examine the impact of two interim assessment programs, mCLASS in Grades K-2 and Acuity in Grades 3-8, on students’ mathematics and reading achievement. Results indicate no overall treatment effect for Grades 3-8 but a statistically significant negative effect in Grades K-2 (i.e., kindergarten and second grade), indicating that students in control schools perform higher than students in treatment schools.

Lesson-Sized Learning Goals and Success Criteria

This tool is used to record the Learning Goals and Success Criteria of lesson-sized stacks of Building Blocks. Teachers may choose to use one template per stack or record multiple stacks on the same template.

Long Term Goals-Math Yearlong Plan

This tool is designed to be used in tandem with the Gazette and helps teachers arrange the CCRS in math into a yearlong sequence of learning.

Effects of Interim Assessments Across the Achievement Distribution: Evidence From an Experiment

This is a follow-on study from Konstantopoulos et al., 2016. Results generally show that lower-achievers in grades 3-8 seem to benefit more from interim assessments (Acuity) than higher-achieving students. The magnitude of the effects were larger in math than reading; however, no effects were found for grade K-2, which used mCLASS.

Grade Level: Elementary School (K-5)

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