Learn, plan, and implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in your classroom. Use the Resource Correlations
tool to find Common Core-aligned resources from Reading A-Z, the ELL Edition, or
Science A-Z, or view all correlated resources at once. We have also provided information on key CCSS topics, why
they are important, and how Learning A-Z resources can be used to implement elements of CCSS.
The Common Core State Standards have identified a set of skills that students must master before they can become fluent readers and comprehend what they are reading. Since these skills are at the very foundation of becoming a proficient reader, they are called foundational skills. These skills are taught somewhat sequentially, with some natural overlapping of skills:
Alphabet
Concept of print
Phonological awareness
Phonics
High-Frequency Words
Fluency
Alphabet
Students need to know the English language is presented using 26 letters. They must be able to recognize, name, and form these letters in order to read and write.
Print Concepts
When introducing students to written language they must understand the basic organization and features of print: read left to right; top to bottom; letters create words and words create sentences; spaces between words; ending and beginning punctuation. Children frequently come to understand these concepts through owning their first books.
Phonological Awareness
This foundational skill is about recognizing the sounds of language. It begins with word awareness and being able to recognize, for example, the number of words that make up a spoken sentence. Secondary mastery of these skills includes recognizing rhyme and syllables. At the most detailed level, the phoneme level, students can discern the sounds that make up a word. They can segment the sounds within a word, blend sounds together to make a word, and substitute sounds to make new words.
Phonics
Students must match a unit of sound (a phoneme) to the letter or letters that stand for the sound (a grapheme). Understanding letter-sound relationships and using them to decode words is the foundation of reading.
High-Frequency Word Recognition
Students must be able to recognize and read high-frequency words with increasing automaticity.
Fluency
Students must be able to read text accurately, at the appropriate rate, and with the correct expression in order to focus on comprehension.
Why Are Foundational Skills Important?
Students need to learn critical foundational skills in order to become fluent readers and comprehend text. They are the skills that help them to decode words and use word knowledge to comprehend more complex writing across various genres.
How Do Learning A-Z Resources Support Teaching Foundational Skills?
Learning A-Z provides easy access to a rich collection of resources necessary to help all students develop strong Foundational Skills in reading. Many of these resources are available in printable and projectable formats.
Alphabet Books and activities build skills in letter naming, recognition, and formation.
Shared Reading Books and lessons can be used to model fluency and teach foundational skills such as concepts of print.
Informational Text
What Is Informational Text?
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) define informational text as a broad category of nonfiction resources, including biographies; autobiographies; books about history, social studies, science, and the arts; technical texts (including how-to books and procedural texts); and literary nonfiction. The standards stress the importance of focused instruction using informational text with students in the elementary grades.
Informational text is designed to make it easier for the reader to find information. This includes using such text and visual features as section heads, boldfaced terms, tables of contents, glossararies, captions, art, and infographics (graphs, tables, charts, diagrams, etc.).
When selecting informational resources for students, texts should be judged for accuracy, the expertise and credibility of the writer, and the currency of the information presented. The text complexity, clarity, and directness of the language should also be considered.
Why Is Informational Text Important?
Teaching students the skills and strategies to successfully read and comprehend informational text is critical to their future success in higher education and the workplace. Integrating informational text early in students' formal schooling also supports comprehension of science, social studies, and math content. It also supports students in building toward the Common Core reading and writing requirements for graduation.
The Common Core State Standards and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) emphasize the importance of informational text in K-6 reading instruction. The 2009 NAEP Reading Framework established the following proportions of literary to informational passages for NAEP assessments:
Grade
Literary
Informational
4
50%
50%
8
45%
55%
12
30%
70%
How Does Learning A-Z Address the Need for Informational Text?
Learning A-Z offers an extensive collection of nonfiction books, including informational texts in a variety of genres covering an array of topics. All books are available in both printable and projectable formats.
Books with lessons target specific skills and strategies along with supporting worksheets, a graphic organizer, a set of discussion cards, and a comprehension quiz.
Lesson Supplements for nonfiction books address specific aspects of Common Core instruction.
Also available:
Shared Reading nonfiction books ensure early readers work with informational texts.
Our Close Reading Packs contain a large selection of informational text to support reading multiple, short texts closely.
Visual Devices feature explicit instruction on text elements, such as graphs, charts, maps, schedules, or other visual texts.
Content-Area Reading organizes books into featured groups of common content-area topics.
Text Complexity
What Is Text Complexity?
Text complexity is how challenging the material is for each student at their specific grade level. The Common Core State Standards use three factors to determine the complexity of a text:
Qualitative Measures
Quantitative Measures
Considerations relating to the reader and task
Qualitative measures are text attributes that are best evaluated by a human reader. These include factors such as:
Levels of meaning: Is the purpose explicitly stated or is it vague? Does it have a single level of meaning vs. multiple purposes?
Clarity and conventions of language: Is the language clear or is it vague and purposefully misleading? Is the language contemporary and familiar or is it unfamiliar and archaic? Is the text conversational or academic? Is there wide use of figurative language, idiomatic expressions, etc.? Is the text cohesive or does it lack cohesion?
Knowledge demands: Is it a single-themed text and relatively simple as opposed to multiple-themed and complex? Does the text deal with common everyday experiences or does it present experiences that are likely vastly different from those of the reader? Is the text presented from single or multiple perspectives? Are there frequent changes in the setting? How many, if any, references to other texts does the text contain?
Structure: How is the text organized - chronologically or in another logical fashion? Is it randomly arranged with complex and loosely connected content? Does the structure and organization make sense? Are sections and features clearly labeled? Is the text free from unnecessary distractions?
Visual device complexity: Are graphical devices relatively simple or are they complex? Are the graphics more "for show" rather than necessary to help the student understand the material being presented?
Quantitative measures are aspects of a text such as sentence length, word length, word frequency, and repetition that are best measured by computer software.
Considerations relating to the reader and task is the final component of text complexity. These considerations depend upon the circumstances of each student in relation to each particular book at the time of reading.
Each reader brings different skills, background, and motivation to the act of reading. For example, a student who is interested in the topic of a particular book is likely to bring more background knowledge to the reading task and to be motivated to learn more about the subject.
The task itself also influences the reader's interaction with text. Some tasks are less demanding, such as reading for leisure or skimming text for a key piece of information. More cognitive demand is required when a reader is, for example, preparing for a test, assembling a piece of equipment, or reading for long-term retention.
Why Is Text Complexity Important?
In the 50 years before the Common Core Standards were released, the text that students encountered in middle and high school had decreased in complexity, while textbooks in colleges, universities, and the workplace had become more complex. As a result, many students graduating from high school lacked sufficient skills to comprehend the text they encountered in college and the workplace. The authors of the Common Core State Standards for ELA took steps to ensure that greater attention is paid to gradually increasing the complexity of the text students read and comprehend as they move through school.
How Does Learning A-Z Address Text Complexity?
Learning A-Z supports teachers with choosing high-quality, appropriately complex texts for their students, utilizing the Three-Part Model of Text Complexity introduced in the Common Core State Standards.
Close Reading is a central focus of the Common Core State Standards. It requires students to get deeply engaged with the text they are reading. The purpose is to teach them to notice features and language used by the author. Students are required to think thoroughly and methodically about the details in a text.
Close reading isn't the old "students read, teacher questions and evaluates" model. While it is initially modeled and then scaffolded by a teacher, over time the teacher releases the responsibility of close reading to the student. Teachers help students determine how a text is organized and understand the effect of the author's word choice in a certain passage. Close reading goes "deeper than the text." It mines what is under the surface of the words. Students eventually evaluate or critique what is written.
Why Is Close Reading Important?
Close reading teaches students to seek out micro-levels of understanding. It supports students' comprehension but also prompts students to take the time to dig deeper, understand, and make connections to text.
Close reading is more than being able to retell a story or provide a main idea or supporting details from a text. When students are taught to read a text closely, they become more skilled at locating evidence within a sentence, paragraph, or page. Then, orally or in writing, they can justify answers to text-dependent questions based on evidence. These are basic close reading skills as outlined by the Common Core State Standards that every student must know to succeed in college and career.
How Does Learning A-Z Support Close Reading?
Learning A-Z's close reading materials draw students into the text and get them involved in examining the facts and details.
Close Reading Packs offer multiple re-readings of a short text for different purposes in order to find evidence to answer a Key Question.
More than 2,500 Books by Grade/Level enable teachers to provide appropriate texts for students to practice the skills and strategies of close reading.
Graphic organizers and comprehensive lesson plans for books support close reading instruction and practice.
Shared Reading Books help our youngest learners begin reading text more closely. Each five-day lesson plan includes a section devoted to text-dependent questions. A second projectable version of each book includes character prompts. The characters ask the reader to complete tasks and interact with the book.
Comprehension Skill Packs provide direct and explicit instruction on up to 16 different comprehension skills to support student's close reading of any text.
Our Paired Books lessons include a set of text-dependent questions that require students to closely read and compare and contrast two related texts.
Text-Dependent Questions
What Are Text-Dependent Questions?
Text-dependent questions are those that can only be answered by referring back to the text being read. The Common Core State Standards require students to "read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it." They must also cite pertinent evidence from the text when responding orally or when writing an answer to questions about the text. Students cannot rely solely on prior knowledge or personal experience.
Why Are Text-Dependent Questions Important?
Good text-dependent questions encourage careful investigation of text. They will often lead students to discover something important that may have been overlooked the first time they read the text. They guide students to dive deeper into the text and identify core insights.
Text-dependent questions can be used by the teacher to promote discussion and comprehension. They provide opportunities for students to express ideas, support opinions with evidence, and draw conclusions, both verbally and in writing.
The Common Core State Standards for ELA move instruction away from generic questions such as, "What are the main idea and three supporting details?" to questions that require students to analyze what they are reading, such as, "The text describes male emperor penguins as tough. Give two pieces of information from the text that demonstrate how they are tough."
How Does Learning A-Z Incorporate Text-Dependent Questions?
Text-dependent questions that students respond to verbally or in writing can be found in a multitude of Learning A-Z instructional resources.
Learning A-Z Books have a focus question, discussion cards, and a comprehension quiz to prompt verbal and written responses to text-dependent questions.
All Shared Reading Books come with a five-day lesson plan, with a section devoted to text-dependent questions. Each Shared Reading Projectable Book with Prompts offers opportunities for readers to complete tasks and interact with the projectable tools to answer text-dependent questions.
A text-dependent Key Question is the focus of every Close Reading Pack. Multiple re-reads of the text encourage students to closely read in order to answer the Key Question.
Our Paired Books lessons include a set of text-dependent questions that require students to closely read and compare and contrast two related texts.
Academic Vocabulary
What Is Academic Vocabulary?
The Common Core State Standards consider words and phrases that are commonly used in written text but not in conversation to be academic vocabulary. These words often relate to other more familiar words—for example, watch and observe. They are also words that help students understand oral directions and classroom instructional dialogue. Academic vocabulary helps students comprehend text across different content areas, including math, science, and social studies/history.
The CCSS refer to three tiers of vocabulary, all of which are crucial for language comprehension.
Tier 1 words: common vocabulary that most children learn in the early grades through speaking and listening.
Tier 2 words: less familiar vocabulary found mainly in written text but also shared between teacher and student in conversations related to instruction. These words are found across a variety of domains. The Common Core State Standards refer to them as "general academic words." Sometimes they are referred to as "rich vocabulary." Many Tier 2 words are more specific or subtle forms of Tier 1 words—for example, saunter and walk.
Tier 3 words: low-frequency vocabulary generally limited to a specific knowledge domain. These words are critical to understanding concepts taught in specific content areas and are best learned in that context. The CCSS refer to them as "domain-specific words." Examples include isotope, peninsula, and refinery. They are more common in informational text, where they are often defined either explicitly or in context.
Why Is Teaching Academic Vocabulary Important?
Developing a rich and varied vocabulary is fundamental to reading comprehension and overall academic achievement. The Common Core State Standards stress the need to provide frequent, direct, systematic instruction for academic vocabulary. Strategically choose vocabulary to pre-teach or pause briefly to teach during a read-aloud using student-friendly definitions. Select those Tier 2 and 3 words that are most crucial to understanding the text, and therefore most likely to increase students' comprehension. After students are familiar with the definition and the use of the word in the text, ask questions that prompt them to practice using the new vocabulary in context.
How Does Learning A-Z Support Teaching Academic Vocabulary?
Each Lesson Supplement features academic vocabulary words important to discussing a particular book. Words are listed whether they are used in the book or in the lesson plan to ensure students can be successful with the instruction.
Writing
What Is Writing?
The Common Core State Standards require students to be able to write effectively and proficiently. They must be able to write for a variety of purposes, cite evidence from text, research and present knowledge on a topic, and produce and publish writing in a variety of formats.
The CCSS focus on three writing categories:
1. Informative/Explanatory
2. Narrative
3. Opinion/Argument
In addition to writing fictional or personal narratives, students must be able to confidently interpret and write about a text. They must also learn to compose informative, narrative, and opinion pieces and plan, write, revise, and edit their work. With the assistance of adults, students are encouraged to use technology to produce and publish their writing, as well as to access multiple sources of information.
Why Is Writing Important?
Studies show that learning to organize information and present it in writing helps students generate a greater understanding of text, improving both reading comprehension and writing skills. In addition, writing about text provides opportunities to reflect and build background knowledge. Written responses to text-dependent questions, for example, allow students to deepen their topic and/or domain knowledge.
The CCSS require students to cite evidence from text and use the conventions of standard English grammar in their writing. Students are encouraged to develop and use a rich academic and domain-specific vocabulary as they write about relevant, grade-level topics. These skills help ensure college and career-readiness.
How Does Learning A-Z Support Teacher Writing?
Learning A-Z offers numerous resources to support writing instruction and practice.
Assessment is any formal or informal measurement of student achievement and progress used to improve learning. To be most effective, it is important to design or use an assessment for its intended purpose–for example, to monitor progress or determine individual strengths and needs. Assessments are powerful tools to inform instruction.
Standardized assessments help ensure that expectations and objectives at each grade level are the same across schools, districts, and states. These and other formal assessments may consist of multiple choice questions, performance tasks, technology-enhanced items, or constructed responses. Students may be required to demonstrate subject-area knowledge, read and write about complex literary and informational text, answer text-dependent questions, infer meaning and build arguments from text, cite evidence from text in support of answers, or use technology to answer questions.
Informal assessments are also powerful tools for teachers to identify what students know and where they need support. For example, teachers can evaluate student work using checklists and rubrics, and they can conduct purposeful observations of students as they learn and play.
Both formal and informal assessments can be either summative or formative. Summative assessments are conducted after the learning occurs, whereas formative assessments take place during the learning process.
Regardless of the type, assessment results can provide valuable information that empowers educators to adapt instruction in ways that best meet the needs of their particular student population.
Why Is Assessment Important?
Assessment can require students to apply learning in complex ways to help prepare them for both college and the workplace. Teachers and administrators use assessment to gather specific information on how students are progressing toward the following CCSS criteria for college and career readiness: demonstrating independence; building strong content knowledge; responding to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline; comprehension and critiques; valuing evidence; using technology and digital media strategically and capably; and understanding other perspectives and cultures. But most importantly, assessment is an ongoing form of communication between students and teachers. It allows teachers to identify where students need support and adapt instruction accordingly to maximize student success.
How Does Learning A-Z Support Assessment?
The vast collection of resources at Learning A-Z supports a range of skills that many students will be assessed on under the Common Core standards. Every resource listed as support for a particular Common Core key topic will help make students more successful.
Assessment resources measure student progress in phonological awareness, phonics, high-frequency word reading, fluency, and comprehension.
More than 2,500 Books by Grade/Level have quizzes with a range of text dependent multiple-choice and extended response questions. The variety in cognitive rigor, depth of knowledge, and question types allows educators to measure an array of reading skills.
