University of Illinois at Chicago<\/a> who helped write the common core standards for how to incorporate reading into science instruction, said that as a whole, the standards make no adjustments for students who are learning English or for children who might enter kindergarten without having been exposed to books.<\/p>\n\u201cIf I\u2019m teaching fifth grade and I have a youngster in my class who reads as a first grader, throwing him a grade-level text is not going to do him any good, no matter what the standards say,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yikes. My thinking runs the opposite way: if you’re giving a fifth-grader who reads below grade-level material written for first-graders, that’s going to be even more detrimental than giving him fifth-grade material and helping him work through it. The last thing we should be doing is trying to assign “grade-level” material to students. Rather, we should be encouraging students to find good, classic literature that they find engaging and interesting and then help them through it where it’s above them\u2014teach them how to look up the words they don’t know (easier today than ever), how to boost their reading level to match these classic books.<\/p>\n
This is partly a reaction not only to Shanahan’s statement but to those who I have encountered who try to limit children from reading books “above their level” because it would be “too much for them,” despite the fact that the children are interested in those books. That kind of limitation is infuriating and illustrates an important point in the discussion of standards:\u00a0 grade level standards for children should be understood as minimums, not as “norms.”<\/p>\n
Back to the example of the fifth-grader reading way below grade level, the biggest effort needs to help that kid find literature that connects with him, something that he can become immersed in, something that she is interested in. Once the curiosity and interest levels are there, kids are capable of learning quickly\u2014the trick is to find ways to get them motivated to learn (as I’ve said before, in our soft and prosperous culture, motivation is the real problem<\/a>). They’re capable of a lot more than we think they are.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The NYTimes has published a piece focusing on 100 New York schools experimenting with different approaches towards achieving the “Common Core” standards that attempt to shore up problems with the “No Child Left Behind” standards. In general, I agree with clearer standardization of minimum standards (though it must be clear that these are minimums and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[53,438,721,441,439,440,442,348],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Experimental Approaches to Achieve Common Core State Standards - Jason Staples<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n