3. Einstein said, “It is the supreme art of the teacher to
awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”
4. Breathe. Pause. Reflect. Renew.
• Changing Curriculum: Addressing the Common Core
• From teaching reading to technology and content area driven language arts.
• Transforming our curriculum and practice.
• Waking Up: Moving Forward with Open Hearts and Minds
• Quick look at where we’ve been and where we need to go.
• Finding the resiliency and agency to continue.
• Addressing the Challenges and Realities of the Next Decade
• Return to relationship-driven & responsive pedagogy
• Increasing engagement, self-efficacy & lifelong learning for both teachers and learners.
• Fostering a love of learning
6. No Single “Best” Practice
• Teachers need to select Variables that effect learning
judiciously from evidence- include -
based instructional practices • Affective environment
to meet needs of diverse
learners. • Authenticity of tasks
• Learning cannot be • Social Environment
considered without • Parental Involvement
attention to the
environment or context. • Types of Materials
7. Comprehensive Literacy Instruction
• All students achieve full literacy potential.
• Instruction should prepare students to enter adulthood
• to participate fully in a democratic society as part of a gloal economy.
• Reading and writing with purpose, competence, ease, and joy.
• Personal, intellectual and social nature of literacy learning
• supports the notion that students learn new meanings in response to
new experiences.
8. Comprehensive Literacy Instruction
• Balanced approach with appropriate emphasis on meaning and skill instruction.
• Incorporates evidence-based best practices to suit the needs of all students in whole-
group, small group, and individualized instruction.
• Builds on knowledge that students bring to school
• Acknowledges reciprocity among reading processes (e.g. decoding, vocabulary,
comprehension, motivation and reading/writing.
• Recognizes that comprehension is the ultimate goals fo literacy learning.
• Emphasizes meaning through open and collaborative tasks that require dialog and
critical thinking.
• Provides differentiated and individualized instruction for diverse and struggling
learners.
9. Ten Evidence-Based Best Practices for Comprehensive Literacy Instruction
1.Create a classroom culture that fosters literacy motivation
2.Teach reading for authentic meaning-making purposes: for pleasure, to be informed
and to perform a task.
3.Provide students with “scaffolded” instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics,
vocabulary, fluency an d comprehension to promote independent reading.
4.Give students time for self-selected reading
5.Provide students with high-quality literature across a wide range of genres.
6.Use multiple texts that build on prior knowledge, link concepts and expand
vocabulary.
7.Build a whole-class context that emphasizes community and collaboration.
8.Balance teacher and student led discussions of texts.
9.Integrate technologies that link and expand concepts
10.Differentiate instruction using a variety of instructionally relevant assessments.
10. Comprehensive Roles & Responsibilities
Teachers: Students:
• Act like coaches • Engaged
• Incorporate higher-level • Strategic
responses to text • Literate
• Provide access to a variety of • Receive differentiated
books (text) and time to access instruction
them.
• Independent
• Are the ultimate decision
makers • Work collaboratively
11. Empowering Teachers
• Once teachers are empowered by their vision and have at their disposal
a plethora of practices and instructional methods from which to choose,
they are free to incorporate and integration of evidence-based practices
to provide comprehensive literacy instruction.
• No matter how well a particular practice is shown to be effective by
research, optimal literacy teaching and learning can only be achieved
when skillful, knowledgeable and dedicated teachers are given the
freedom and latitude to use their professional judgment to make
instruction decisions that enable students to achieve their full literacy
potential.
12. CCSS as Catalyst for Change
∗ We can encourage growth, for our students and also in our
profession, if we use CCSS as an opportunity to think critically
about our reading curriculum, our students, and how we can
implement manageable changes to meet the goals of the
standards. We have to choose our path.
∗ Pathways to the Common Core (Calkins, Ehrenworth, &Lehman, 2011).
13. Common Core Standards (2010)
• Developed in response to Race to the Top by the National Governor’s
Association. The standards have tried to articulate what it means to be
literate in the twenty-first century.
• Provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected
to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them.
• Standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world,
reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for
success in college and careers.
• Career or College Readiness
14. Reasons for Standards
∗ The CCSS were framed to meet College and Career Readiness
goal for all students.
∗ Developing independence
∗ Building strong content knowledge
∗ Responding to varying demands of audiences, tasks, purposes, and
disciplines.
∗ Critique and Comprehension
∗ Value evidence
∗ Use Technology and digital media strategically and critically
∗ Understanding other perspectives and cultures
∗ CCSS and CRG are forcing us to think beyond the NRP Report’s
recommendations for phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and
comprehension and create comprehensive literacy programs worthy of
these goals.
17. CCSS Reframes Reading as
English Language Arts K-12
∗ Language Arts Standards Address:
∗ Reading Literature
∗ Reading Informational Text
∗ Reading Foundational Skills
∗ Writing
∗ Speaking and Listening
∗ Language
∗ These move K through 12 with standards under these headings.
18. Reading
• The standards establish a “staircase” of increasing complexity in what students must
be able to read so that all students are ready for the demands of college- and career-
level reading no later than the end of high school.
• The standards also require the progressive development of reading comprehension so
that students advancing through the grades are able to gain more from whatever they
read.
• Through reading a diverse array of classic and contemporary literature as well as
challenging informational texts in a range of subjects, students are expected to build
knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspective.
19. Reading Continued
∗ Because the standards are building blocks for successful classrooms, but
recognize that teachers, school districts and states need to decide on
appropriate curriculum, they intentionally do not offer a reading list.
Instead, they offer numerous sample texts to help teachers prepare for
the school year and allow parents and students to know what to expect
at the beginning of the year.
∗ The standards mandate certain critical types of content for all
students, including classic myths and stories from around the
world, foundational U.S. documents, seminal works of American
literature, and the writings of Shakespeare. The standards
appropriately defer the many remaining decisions about what and
how to teach to states, districts, and schools.
20. Writing
∗ The ability to write logical arguments based on substantive claims,
sound reasoning, and relevant evidence is a cornerstone of the writing
standards, with opinion writing—a basic form of argument—extending
down into the earliest grades.
∗ Research—both short, focused projects (such as those commonly
required in the workplace) and longer term in depth research —is
emphasized throughout the standards but most prominently in the
writing strand since a written analysis and presentation of findings is so
often critical.
∗ Annotated samples of student writing accompany the standards and
help establish adequate performance levels in writing arguments,
informational/explanatory texts, and narratives in the various grades.
21. Speaking and Listening
∗ The standards require that students gain, evaluate, and present
increasingly complex information, ideas, and evidence through
listening and speaking as well as through media.
∗ An important focus of the speaking and listening standards is
academic discussion in one-on-one, small-group, and whole-
class settings. Formal presentations are one important way
such talk occurs, but so is the more informal discussion that
takes place as students collaborate to answer questions, build
understanding, and solve problems.
22. Language
∗ The standards expect that students will grow their vocabularies through a
mix of conversations, direct instruction, and reading. The standards will
help students determine word meanings, appreciate the nuances of words,
and steadily expand their repertoire of words and phrases.
∗ The standards help prepare students for real life experience at college and
in 21st century careers. The standards recognize that students must be
able to use formal English in their writing and speaking but that they must
also be able to make informed, skillful choices among the many ways to
express themselves through language.
∗ Vocabulary and conventions are treated in their own strand not because
skills in these areas should be handled in isolation but because their use
extends across reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
23. Media and Technology
Just as media and technology are integrated in school
and life in the twenty-first century, skills related to
media use (both critical analysis and production of
media) are integrated throughout the standards.
Aim is for competence in using media and technology to
better comprehend, learn, communicate and create. This
is important because literacy is constantly evolving…
24. Where to Begin
∗ Begin by reading the entire CCSS and what is expected for learning K-12.
Become familiar with your grade level, the grades before and after your
grade level.
∗ Look at your existing curriculum (CRLA Framework) to determine what
is working. Then identify areas for change.
∗ Work collaboratively, across disciplines, increasing the amount of time
learners are engaged in language arts and critical thinking.
∗ Change will not happen all at once.
∗ It cannot be prescriptive or top-down.
25. Professional Responsibility
∗ Teachers are going to be integral in setting goals for
improving language arts curriculum and instruction.
∗ It is the teachers who know the strengths and weaknesses of
their current curriculum
∗ Teachers also know their students and how to engage them in
learning.
∗ It will be the teachers who will be able to identify evidence to
show what is working to meet the standards and what is not.
26. Changing the Role of Teachers
∗ Cleaver, 2011, suggests that teachers consider the learning
experience and help student delve deeper into understanding.
This means, closing the textbook, scaffolding learning and
moving learners individually towards independence.
∗ We need to foster interdisciplinary studies and celebrate
learning and thinking. This may require giving control to our
students, allow them to think outside the box, and trust they
will ask meaningful questions and engage in learning that
reflects real cognitive growth (Pandya, 2012).
27. Recommendations
McLaughlin (2012) Recommends:
∗1. Read standards within each category
∗2. Read vertically k-5 to understand what students need to
know.
∗3. Within each standard read horizontally to fully understand
what the standard encompasses.
∗4. Know how and why to teach for understanding for your
particular students. This includes prior knowledge, formative
assessments, small group instruction, and making content
learning comprehensible.
28. Reasons to Embrace CCSS
∗ Provided urgently needed wake up call ∗ Clear design with central goals and
high standards
∗ Respects the professional judgment of
teachers ∗ Recognizes that intellectual growth
happens across years and disciplines.
∗ Emphasizes higher level
comprehension skills ∗ Calls for proficiency, complexity, and
independence
∗ Places equal weight on reading and
writing ∗ Supports cross-curricular teaching
∗ Stresses the importance of critical ∗ Access for all students to core
citizenship.
∗ Aims to put every state on same
∗ Emphasizes reading complex texts. measuring stick
29. Changes in Literacy Instruction
• Comprehensive language arts program
• Balance of direct, guided, and differentiated instruction.
• Meaningful instruction for all students
• More opportunities for student talk and time with texts (Allington & Pearson, 2011).
• Access to content by all students through a greater variety of texts.
(Includes electronic texts)
• Break away from scripted programs and methods that do not meet our
goals for student learning.
30. Changing Texts
Conley (2012) sees CCSS as an opportunity for educators to
address how and why we read different types of text –
multimodal, digital, print etc…
•Key cognitive strategies will be to teach our students problem
formation, research strategies, interpretation, and
communicating with precision and accuracy.
•Cognition can be expressed visually, orally, or in various forms
of writing with or with technology.
31. Recommended Texts
• CCSS specifically calls for 50% narrative and 50% informational text in the primary
grades. In the upper grades the ration shifts from equal to more non-fiction. All
classrooms should have a range of readable text that are accessible to all students.
These texts should reflect digital text and reading on the Internet.
• Texts should reflect perspectives of culture, language, experiences of readers (prior
or vicarious) and include all genres (Coleman, 2012; Johns, 2012; Allington & Pearson,
2011).
• Need to use qualitative as well as quantitative measures to consider text difficulty
and address comprehension and interest. At LRA conference in San Diego, Pearson
stated that there is no one readability formula. The formulas that are now part of the
common core document have been added by publishers. Beware.
32. Creating Curriculum
∗ Being engaged with your students using literacy and language
to learn content, is something that I believe is needed to
renew your practice and commitment to their education.
∗ We need to see reading and learning from the point of view of
our students? There are many changes we can make to
increase engagement for us all.
∗ Balance classic literature with newer literature, layer texts
(fiction + non-fiction)
33. Guided Model of Instruction
Maniates and Mahiri, 2012
∗ Guided model of instruction moves learners to independent
practice as they build a “situational” model that links prior
knowledge to new concepts.
∗ Adaptive model teaches content without assuming anything
about students knowledge or experience. This includes
increased time for student talk , guided practice with English
fluency, and independent reading and choice.
∗ If instruction is not working, they encourage teachers to re-
sequence instruction – teachers need to develop expertise in
pedagogical design and act as curriculum mediators.
34. Ecological Model of Reading
Comprehension Composition Literary Aspects Language Conventions
Background knowledge Process Literacy Elements Sound/Symbol
•Prediction 1.Planning •Theme
2.Drafting •Plot Grammar
Text Processing 3.Revising •Character
•Summarizing •Setting Syntax
•Sequencing
•Identifying importance Response to Literature Interaction
•Personal
Monitoring •Creative
•Clarifying •Critical
•Planning
35. Not Necessarily New Just Pieced Back Together
• Project-Based Learning
• Inquiry Based Learning www.edutopia.org
• Integrated or Thematic Teaching Has great resources for
these instructional
• Reading and Writing Workshop methods.
• Holistic Learning and Teaching
• Multimedia Projects
• Arts-Based Instruction
36.
37. For CCSS to Transform our Practice,
We Must Be Part of the Change
∗ We all need to act quickly and transform our existing curriculum
before others tell us how to do it. We don’t need a script, we need
better opportunities to engage in language arts and to use our
expertise.
∗ We need to identify our own strengths and learn new ways to
engage learners. We can do this through collaboration, mapping,
critiquing current curriculum.
∗ We need to be supported, included and heard
∗ We need to involve parents and communities in these changes
38. Joy in Literacy? How do you feel?
The materials and methods we are using are not promoting
lifelong literacy and they do not foster a real passion for literacy
(Gallagher, 2009)
We “seem to be stuck in a skillls-based, content free approach
to learning,” (Munson, 2012). Teaching reading void of writing,
content integration, nor the arts.
Following “mandated, scripted programs with fidelity; step by
step, page by page, without thinking about how children learn
to read” (Allington & Pearson, 2011).
39. Time to Recharge and Move Forward
• If we truly want literate citizens who can read and choose to
read multiple texts for real purpose – then we have to change.
• It is time to rethink what we want readers to do with their
own literacy, help them use literacy to learn, and foster deep
thinking and critical learning.
• We need innovative literacy practices that include new
literacies, and foster personal engagement in literacy that can
lead to new ideas.
40. Engaging Teachers and Learners
Teaching Reading Engaging in Literacy Learning
• Scripted Reading Programs • Rethinking our goals and standards
for language arts
• Emphasis on Accountability
• Enact these for the engagement
• 90 minute literacy block with little
and understanding of all learners
time engaged in reading text
• Integrating sciences, social studies,
• No time for writing, content area, or
and the arts
arts.
41. Engaging the Eye Generation
Broader View of Literacy Not just new literacies: Multidimensional
• 1. Basic Literacy Reading and writing
• 2. Scientific Literacy Listening and speaking
• 3. Economic Literacy Analyzing and communicating
• 4. Technological Literacy Through a range of socially contextual
• 5. Visual Literacy symbols, including
• 6. Information Literacy Text and images
• 7. Multicultural Literacy In any combination
• 8. Global Awareness Relevant to the individual or culture
42. +
Lemur?
Zachary’s Lemur or is it a Meerkat?
If we listen and interact with children while they are engaged in learning we
can help them maximize their learning and thinking. We can also help them
learn to use the tools necessary to be a literate citizen in a global digital
society.
Meerkat!
Used iPhone
Google, Google Images, Discovery Channel, Maps, Wikipedia.
Learned
Distinguishing characteristics, habitat, habits, geography, body parts, …
43. Look what I found at
the bookstore for He had already told me
him – a new
that he wanted to be a
fictional series
NINGENT when he grows
up.
(Ninja Secret Agent)
44. Finding the Resiliency and Agency to Continue
• Do meaningful things –
• Most statements of standards or goals include the concept of children
becoming “lifelong learner”. Yet in general we fail to arrange for
children to play any active role in deciding the purpose of their
learning. Indeed, for many children, very little of what they do in school
is personally meaningful. With some exceptions, we do not have
children actually trying to accomplish things in the world trying to
make change. This deprives them of the feeling of generosity, agency
and courageousness, along with the bonding that occurs when people
work together to accomplish something. We have to teach toward
children who, individually and collaboratively, make meaning and do
meaningful things.
• Making meaning is good. Doing meaningful things is better.
45. • Our interactions with children in the classroom influence who
they think they are and what they think they’re doing. Over
time, the interactions affect children’s values and dispositions –
how they value learning, themselves and each other, and
whether they become disposed toward resilience, reciprocity,
and social justice.
Johnston (2012). Opening Minds:
Using language to change lives. P. 122-123.
46. You don’t just teach reading. You teach human
beings to use language to learn, to think critical and
participate in the world.
Language has the power to shape our
consciousness and it does so for each
human child, by providing the theory
that he or she uses to interpret and
manipulate their environment.
Michael Halliday
47. Caring & Respect
The desire to understand the learner, and create situations in which the
learner will be successful requires caring and respect.
Teachers must develop a sense of themselves and their student, and a
relationship of care. The relationship between teacher and student is what
mediates the ways in which the student understands the teacher’s
interactions.
For example, following the student’s lead and imagining the students logic
requires the teacher to decenter – to actually find the student interesting.
This means not focusing on themselves or turning teaching into an ego-
involving activity. Teachers with judgmental sensibility must lose it,
particularly with regard to linguistically and cultural values and practices.
Dozier, C., Johnston, P. & Rogers, R. (2006). Critical literacy: critical teaching. New York: Teachers College Press.
48. Care & Respect (Continued)
Imaging the student’s logic and point of view requires close observation of
what the student does and says, and how he or she does and says it. This
requires a personal commitment and respect that casts the logic in a
productive light.
Unless the teacher frames and structures activities so their students are
successful, waiting for students to figure things out or to self-correct will be
unproductive. You cannot follow the student’s lead if he does not know
where he is going.
Dozier, C., Johnston, P. & Rogers, R. (2006). Critical literacy: critical teaching. New York: Teachers College Press.
50. Wobble – Change Makes Us Grow
Ten Conditions that Contribute to Change:
•1. Positive Tension & Discomfort
•2. Personal Commitment • 6. Inquiry
•3. A Recursive Process • 7. Risk Taking
•4. Collaboration • 8. Time
•5. Cooperation • 9. Reflection & Evaluation
• 10. Feedback
Robb, L. (2000). Redefining Staff Development.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
51. Traditional Training to Professional Study
• Teacher passively receives • Teacher is actively involved in
information from one source. constructing knowledge from
many sources.
• Professional Readings
Robb, L. (2000). Redefining Staff Development.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. • Theory of Learning
52. Challenges and Concerns CCSS
Developmentally Appropriate Meeting the needs of culturally and
Teaching and Learning linguistically diverse students
∗ Critical you understand literacy ∗ We must know the needs and
development and what is strengths of ELLs.
appropriate for students at your ∗ We must understand how language is
grade level. learned, how long it takes to develop
∗ We need to respect childhood an academic vocabulary
while balancing their need for ∗ ELLs have a right to have access to
information. same content.
∗ Reaching kids with special needs. ∗ We should assess them in ways that
show their cognitive thinking.
53. CCSS Guidelines Regarding
English Language Learners
∗ Instruction support to make grade ∗ Allow for student talk
level work comprehensible
∗ Differentiate instruction with
∗ Modified assignments that reflect primary language support
comprehension and cognitive ability
∗ Use sheltered and direct
∗ Additional time and opportunities to
instruction when appropriate
learn
∗ Daily Language Instruction with
∗ Additional interaction with peers and
English speakers ELD instruction
∗ Build on strengths – prior experiences ∗ Opportunities for structured
and interests student talk and groupings that
foster verbal interaction.
∗ Teach language through content areas
54.
55. Fostering a Love of Learning (Agency)
• “A child must have some version of, “Yes, I imagine I can do this.” And a teacher
must also view the present child as competent and on that basis imagine new
possibilities.”
• Dyson (1999). 396-397 cited in (Johnston, P. (2004) Choice Words: How our language effects children’s learning.
Stenhouse.
• Children should leave school with a sense that if they act, and act strategically, they can
accomplish their goals. I call this feeling a sense of agency. (Johnston, p. 29).
• Agency enables the learner to be/feel competent.
• The desire for agency persists throughout life and is so powerful, that when people feel
there is no relationship between what they do and what happens, they become depressed
and helpless.
• How do we arrange for children to encounter problems and act strategically, solve them
usually attaching a goal?
• “How did you…?” or “Why do you think…?” questions are essential
56. Fostering Your Own Sense of Agency
How can you face the changes and challenges of the Common Core and
develop your own sense of agency?
•Face problems/challenges.
•Think strategically.
•Solve problems & accomplish goals.
How can you create experiences that support your own agency as a
teacher? This is important because we know that teachers make all the
difference. If you don’t feel competent then you won’t be able to act.
58. Powerful Interactions
• 1. Be present • You make the difference!
• 2. Connect • Keep your cup filled (energy)!
• Do a “Me Check”
• 3. Extend the Learning
• Quiet the Static
• Find the humor
• Add personal touches
Being intentional means:
• Celebrate the learning
Tune into the learner before you act. • Join with colleagues
Consider what you want to
accomplish and assess the best • Share stories of success
way to do it with this particular
learner in this particular moment.
Donbro, A.L., Jablon, J. & Stetson, C. (2012).Powerful Interactions.
NAEYC.
59. Resources for CCSS
• Pathways to the Common Core
(2012)
• The Common Core Lesson Book
K-5 (2012)
• Best Practices in Literacy
Instruction (4th Edition)
• Mapping the Common Core
60. You will make the difference.
You already have and you will continue to do so!
