The document provides an overview of the PA Core Standards including the background and goals of the Common Core Standards, key shifts in English Language Arts including a focus on balancing literary and informational texts and building text complexity, and details on how the PA Academic Standards for ELA are organized and examples of vocabulary instruction frameworks.

1. NEIU19
Fall 2013

2. • Background of PA Core
Agenda
•
•
•
Standards
Brief overview of Teacher
Effectiveness
PA Core ELA Shifts
PA Academic Standards for
ELA
•
•
•
1.2 Reading Informational Text
1.3 Reading Literature
Text Complexity
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3. *

4. CC Intro

5. – Initiated in 1996 by the National Governors
Association (NGA) and Council of Chief State
School Officers (CCSSO)
Core State
Standards
– Result in College and Career Readiness
• Are students leaving schools with the
content and skills they need?
– Developed in collaboration with teachers, school
administrators, and experts and informed by
other top performing countries
– Fewer, Higher and Clearer Expectations
– 87% of PA Academic Standards are moderately
or very strongly aligned to Common Core
Standards
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7. Teacher
Effectiveness:
TheDanielson
Framework
Beginning 2013-14, teacher evaluations will be based on
classroom observations by principal/supervisor including
evidence that demonstrates behaviors associated with
improving student achievement:
●
Planning and preparation, including selecting standards-based
lesson goals and designing effective instruction and assessment
●
Classroom environment, including establishing a culture for
learning and appropriate classroom management techniques
that maximize instructional time
●
Instruction, including the use of research-based strategies
which engage students in meaningful learning and utilize
assessment results to make decisions abut student needs
●
Professional responsibilities, including using systems for
managing student data and communicating with student
families
PA Assessment Information

9. Pennsylvania
Academic
Standards
for ELA
Standard 1: Foundational Skills begin at Pre Kindergarten and focus
on early childhood, with some standards reflected through Grade 5.
These foundational skills are a necessary and important component
of an effective, comprehensive reading program designed to
develop proficient readers with the capacity to comprehend text both literary and informational across disciplines.
Standard 2: Reading Informational Text enables students to
read, understand, and respond to informational text.
Standard 3: Reading Literature enables students to
read, understand, and respond to works of literature.
Standard 4: Writing develops the skills of
informational, argumentative, and narrative writing as well as the
ability to engage in evidence-based analysis of text and research.
Standard 5: Speaking and Listening focuses students on
communication skills that enable critical listening and effective
presentation of ideas.
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10. *

11. How are the
Assessment
Anchors
organized?

13. 5 ELA/Literacy Shifts
Shift #1:
Balancing the reading of
informational and literary texts
so that students can access nonfiction and authentic texts as
well as literature.
Grade Level Text Selection
1. Grade 4 – 50% Literature vs.
50% Informational
2. Grade 12 – 30% Literature vs.
70% Information
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14. 5 ELA/Literacy Shifts
Building
Knowledge
Through
Content-Rich
Nonfiction:
•Students are required to read very little
informational text in elementary and middle
school.
•Non-fiction makes up the vast majority of
Why?
required reading in college/workplace.
•Informational text is harder for students to
comprehend than narrative text.
*

15. 5 ELA/Literacy Shifts
Shift #1:
Focusing on close and careful
reading of text so that students
are learning from the text.
• Ask text-dependent questions
• Multiple readings for varied
purposes
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16. 5 ELA/Literacy Shifts
Not Text-Dependent
TextDependent
Questions
Text-Dependent
In “Casey at the Bat,” Casey strikes
out. Describe a time when you
failed at something.
What makes Casey’s
experiences at bat
humorous?
In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,”
Dr. King discusses nonviolent
protest. Discuss, in writing, a time
when you wanted to fight against
something that you felt was unfair.
What can you infer
from King’s letter about
the letter that he
received?
In “The Gettysburg Address”
Lincoln says the nation is
dedicated to the proposition that
all men are created equal. Why is
equality an important value to
promote?
“The Gettysburg
Address” mentions the
year 1776. According to
Lincoln’s speech, why is
this year significant to
the events described in
the speech?
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17. 5 ELA/Literacy Shifts
Shift #3:
Building a staircase of complexity
(i.e., each grade level requires a
“step” of growth on the
“staircase”) so that students
graduate college or career ready.
○ It is also important to build a staircase
of complexity within each grade.
○ Pick a standard and read across grade
levels. What changes do you notice
progressing from grade to grade.
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18. 5 ELA/Literacy Shifts
Shift #4:
Writing from sources (i.e., using
evidence from text to inform or make
an argument) so that students use
evidence and respond to the
ideas, events, facts, and arguments
presented in the texts they read.
1.
2.
3.
Narrative
Opinion/Argumentative
Informative/Explanatory
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19. 5 ELA/Literacy Shifts
Shift #5:
Stressing an academically
focused vocabulary so
that students can access
more complex texts.
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20. Research
Behind
Vocabulary
Instruction
• Effective vocabulary instruction has
to start early, in preschool, and
continue throughout the school
years (Nagy, 2005).
• Teaching vocabulary helps develop
phonological awareness (Nagy, 2005)
and reading comprehension
(Beck, Perfetti, & McKeown, 1982).
• Vocabulary instruction needs to be
long-term and comprehensive
(Nagy, 2005) for ELLs (Carlo, August, &
Snow, 2005; Calderón et al., 2005).

21. More
Research
• Command of a large vocabulary
frequently sets high-achieving
students apart from less successful
ones (Montgomery, 2000).
• The average 6-year-old has a
vocabulary of approximately 8000
words, and learns 3000-5000 more
per year (Senechal & Cornell, 1993).
• Vocabulary in kindergarten and first
grade is a significant predictor of
reading comprehension in the middle
and secondary grades
(Cunningham, 2005; Cunningham &
Stanovich, 1997; Chall & Dale, 1995; Denton et al.
2011).

22. • They are critical to understanding
academic texts.
Why are
“academic
words”
important?
• They appear in all sorts of texts.
• They require deliberate effort to learn.
• They are far more likely to appear in
written texts than in speech.
• They often represent subtle or precise
ways to say otherwise relatively simple
things.
• They are seldom heavily scaffolded by
authors or teachers.
Common Core State Standards, Appendix A, page 33

23. – Highly specialized, subjectspecific; low occurrences in texts;
lacking generalization
3 Tiers
of Words
◦ E.g., lava, aorta, legislature, circumference
–Abstract, general academic
(across content areas); encountered in
written language; high utility across
instructional areas
◦ E.g., vary, relative, innovation, accumulate
, surface, layer
– Basic, concrete, encountered in
conversation/ oral vocabulary; words
most student will know at a particular
grade level
◦ E.g., clock, baby
Common Core State Standards, Appendix A, page 33

24. Choosing words
• Joe interceded in his friends’
dispute.
• Which word would you choose to
pre-teach?
Which word?

25. Determining whether a word is a
word. Ask yourself…
• is this a generally useful word?
• does the word relate to other words and
ideas that students know or have been
learning?
• is the word useful in helping students
understand text?
• If the answer is ‘yes’ to all three
questions, the word is likely a Tier 2 word.
If not… probably a Tier 3 word.

26. interceded
Why?
• Verbs are where the action is
–
–
–
–
Teach intercede and other ‘inter’ words…
Likely to see it again in grade-level text
Likely to see it on assessments
We are going to start calling these useful words
“Tier 2 words”

27. Step by Step Vocabulary
Instruction
For Tier 2 words
1. Read the story/text.
2. Contextualize the word.
3. Have the students say the word.
4. Provide student friendly definition.
5. Give an example in another context.

28. Steps continued….
6.
Engage students in interacting with words.
a. Respond with actions.
b. Answer questions/give reasons.
c. Identify examples and non-examples.
7.
Have students repeat the word again.
8.
Review and use the new words.
(Adapted from Bringing Words to Life by Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, Linda Kucan, 2000)

29. Your turn…
• Select a word from the following list:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
determine
analyze
acquire
clarify
interpret
influence
consider
• Use either framework to promote deep
understanding of your selected word.
• Be prepared to share with your colleagues.

31. Standard 1.2
Activity
Time!
Reading
Informational
Text

32. Text Complexity
Quantitative Measures – Readability and other
scores of text complexity often best measured by
computer software.
Qualitative Measures – Levels of
meaning, structure, language conventionality and
clarity, and knowledge demands often best
measured by an attentive human reader.
Reader and Task Considerations – Background
knowledge of reader, motivation, interests, and
complexity generated by tasks assigned often best
made by educators employing their professional
judgment.

33. Standard 1.3
Reading
Literature
Activity
• In your grade level, familiarize yourself
with the skills in standard 1.3.
• Watch America Achieves: The Lottery
and look for skills this lesson addressed.
• Choose a poem from the text exemplars
(Appendix B) and create a lesson plan
which incorporates at least three
common core skills in standard 1.3.
Present your lessons!
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34. Visit the PDE SAS Website
Where can I
find more
information?
–
–
Select Standards
Select Common Core
Pinterest.com/ceceliamecca
Cecelia Mecca, PhD cmecca@iu19.org
Mary Lou Heron mheron@iu19.org
Mike Zwanch mzwanch@iu19.org
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