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is a comprehensive K-8 English language arts curriculum crafted to help students build the knowledge and skills they need to be successful readers, exceptional writers, and effective communicators.

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Wit & Wisdom® - Elementary and Middle School ELA Curriculum

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Wit & Wisdom® is a K-8 English language arts (ELA) curriculum from Great Minds® that provides knowledge and skills to help students read, write, and communicate.

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Random Sentence Starters – Teach Starter

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Random Sentence Starters – Teach Starter

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Random Sentence Starters - Teach Starter

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A fun way to spin up random sentence starters to inspire your students to start writing!

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Reading A-Z: The online reading program with downloadable books to print and assemble

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Reading A-Z: The online reading program with downloadable books to print and assemble

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Reading A-Z: The online reading program with downloadable books to print and assemble | Reading A-Z

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Award-winning reading solution with thousands of leveled readers, lesson plans, worksheets and assessments to teach guided reading, reading proficiency and comprehension to K-5 students

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Instructional Support Platform, Student Asessment, and Data Reporting | Castle Learning

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Instructional Support Platform, Student Asessment, and Data Reporting | Castle Learning

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Instructional Support Platform, Student Assessment, and Data Reporting | Castle Learning

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Castle Learning offers a comprehensive instructional support platform for in class, homework, review, and testing available both online and offline.

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ReadWorks | Award-Winning, EdTech Nonprofit Organization

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ReadWorks is an edtech nonprofit organization that is committed to helping to solve America’s reading comprehension crisis.

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Writing A-Z - Online Writing Lessons and Materials

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Writing A-Z - Online Writing Lessons and Materials

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Writing A–Z is a complete K-5 writing curriculum solution, making writing instruction easier for teachers and engaging for students.

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Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

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Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

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It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

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Newsela | Content and assessment platform

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Content Aligned To National & State Standard, Flexible To Support Relevant Curriculum. Find the Perfect Piece Of Content For Lessons. Go beyond the book.

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Provide relevant texts that consider complexity, academic success, cultural competence, and critical consciousness.

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New York State Next Generation English Language Arts Learning Standards

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New York State Next Generation English Language Arts Learning Standards

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Elementary Writing Program - Writer's Workshop

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Elementary Writing Program - Writer's Workshop

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WritingCity | Elementary Writing Program - Writer's Workshop

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Common Core State Standard Lessons and English Language Arts Video Samples by WritingCity, a K-5 National Writing Lessons Program & Writers Workshop

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Matching Lexile Measures to Grade Ranges - Lexile

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Matching Lexile Measures to Grade Ranges - Lexile

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Warning: It looks like JavaScript is currently disabled. Please be aware that some features of this website will not work as intended.

Skip to main content

Students get a Lexile® measure from an assessment of English language arts or reading. This could be the state test or another standardized test like NWEA's MAP Growth or Istation. See our national student norms data at Hub.Lexile.com for grade level comparisons.

Access New Tool for Insights

Compare Lexile measures with grade levels using Lexile® Grade Level Charts.

GET INSIGHT

Our new Lexile Grade Level Charts can help educators and parents see how students compare to their peers. Explore Lexile student measures by:

Grade level (K-12)

Time of year for test administration (beginning, middle or end of year)

Student percentiles

Download a PDF or print a customized chart to use in reports or share with others.

What About College and Career Readiness?

Another MetaMetrics study found that individuals typically encounter texts around 1300L in their initial postsecondary college and career experiences, higher than high school textbooks that are around 1100L. For ideas on closing this text complexity gap, see our Lexile Text Ranges for College and Career Readiness chart.

See the Chart

What About Text Measures and Grade Levels for Spanish Texts?

See our Lexile Measure Ranges for Spanish Text for Grades 1-5 chart based on another MetaMetrics' study.

See the Chart

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Compare Lexile Measures With Grade Levels - Lexile

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Warning: It looks like JavaScript is currently disabled. Please be aware that some features of this website will not work as intended. Skip to main content Students get a Lexile® measure from an assessment of English language arts or reading. This could be the state test or another standardized test like NWEA's MAP Growth or Istation.

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ERIC - Road to the Code: A Phonological Awareness Program for Young Children., 2000

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ERIC - Road to the Code: A Phonological Awareness Program for Young Children., 2000

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ERIC - Road to the Code: A Phonological Awareness Program for Young Children., 2000

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In order to help kindergartners and first graders who need extra work on their literacy skills, this book offers a plan for teaching phonemic awareness and letter sound correspondence. The plan in the book is a developmentally sequenced, 11-week program to give students repeated opportunities to practice and enhance their beginning reading and spelling abilities.

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Annotated 3-8 ELA and Mathematics State Test Questions (2013 & 2014) | EngageNY

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Annotated 3-8 ELA and Mathematics State Test Questions (2013 & 2014) | EngageNY

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Annotated 3-8 ELA and Mathematics State Test Questions (2013 & 2014) | EngageNY

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On this page you will find links to access a representative sample of questions used on the 2013 and 2014 ELA/Literacy and Mathematics Common Core state tests. There are questions available in every grade (3-8) for both ELA and Mathematics.

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Thank you Jenna Johnson for  creating these CCSS High Frequency Flash Cards!!!

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Thank you Jenna Johnson for  creating these CCSS High Frequency Flash Cards!!!

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ELA 6th Grade Vocabulary Flashcards - Cram.com

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ELA 6th Grade Vocabulary Flashcards - Cram.com

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ELA 6th Grade Vocabulary Flashcards - Cram.com

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Study Flashcards On ELA 6th Grade Vocabulary at Cram.com. Quickly memorize the terms, phrases and much more. Cram.com makes it easy to get the grade you want!

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We Couldn’t Find The Page You Requested.

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Amazing Website with a ton of ready to use ideas!

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Classroom teachers may download and use any materials on this site with their students and the students' families. Anyone else downloading for any other reason, including use in teacher workshops, must have written permission from Dr. Jean Feldman. Site contents are protected by copyright.

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Nonfiction Articles by Lexile

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Word Families: Rebus Rhymes from EnchantedLearning.com.

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Provide relevant texts that consider complexity, academic success, cultural competence, and critical consciousness.

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Improving Fluency in Young Readers -- Fluency Instruction

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Improving Fluency in Young Readers -- Fluency Instruction

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Short Response and Extended Response Resource

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Short Response and Extended Response Resource

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Annotated 3-8 ELA and Mathematics State Test Questions (2013 & 2014) | EngageNY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On this page you will find links to access a representative sample of questions used on the 2013 and 2014 ELA/Literacy and Mathematics Common Core state tests. There are questions available in every grade (3-8) for both ELA and Mathematics.

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English Language Arts Learning Standards | New York State Education Department

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English Language Arts Learning Standards | New York State Education Department

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In 2015, New York State (NYS) began a process of review and revision of its current English Language Arts (ELA) Learning Standards adopted in January 2011. The New York State Next Generation English Language Arts Learning Standards (Revised 2017) were developed through numerous phases of public comment as well as virtual and face-to-face meetings with committees consisting of NYS educators, teachers of English Language Learners/Multilingual Learners and Students with Disabilities, parents, curriculum specialists, school administrators, college professors, and experts in cognitive research. These revised standards reflect the collaborative efforts and expertise among all constituents involved.

The New York State Next Generation English Language Arts Learning Standards (Revised 2017) consist of revisions, additions, deletions, vertical movement, and clarifications of the current English Language Arts Standards. They are defined as the knowledge, skills, and understanding that individuals can and do habitually demonstrate over time when exposed to high-quality instructional environments and learning experiences.

To compare the changes between the 2011 New York State P-12 Common Core Learning Standards and the 2017 Next Generation Learning Standards view the ELA Learning Standards Crosswalks.

Preface and Introductory Documents:

Revised Learning Standards Documents:

The new revised learning standards for English Language Arts are available at the links below:

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English Language Arts Learning Standards

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In 2015, New York State (NYS) began a process of review and revision of its current English Language Arts (ELA) Learning Standards adopted in January 2011.

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Grades 3-5

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YOu can find grade level paired passages with multiple choice, short response and extended response questions here...it is free. There are also vocabulary activities and much more!!!

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ReadWorks | Award-Winning, EdTech Nonprofit Organization

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ReadWorks is an edtech nonprofit organization that is committed to helping to solve America’s reading comprehension crisis.

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CommonLit | Free Fiction & Nonfiction Literacy Resources, Curriculum, & Assessment Materials for Middle & High School English Language Arts

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CommonLit | Free Fiction & Nonfiction Literacy Resources, Curriculum, & Assessment Materials for Middle & High School English Language Arts

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For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your web browser.

World-class content

Access thousands of reading lessons and our comprehensive ELA curriculum, CommonLit 360.

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Tailor instruction to students' needs with text-to-speech, translation, and digital note-taking.

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Track students' reading performance, set goals, and plan instructional next steps.

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Discover thousands of free, supplemental lessons and quizzes in English and Spanish - all featuring great authors.

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Measure growth in reading comprehension with three benchmark assessments when you unlock our premium packages.

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Support a successful rollout of our research-backed ELA curriculum with personalized webinars and on-demand trainings.

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CommonLit has made a tremendously positive impact on my teaching practice. I'm very proud to teach CommonLit!

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CommonLit definitely keeps me organized. It's easy for me to grade and it's easy for me to see students' reading growth increase throughout the year.

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The CommonLit assessment questions are aligned to our ELA standards, which is extremely helpful when prepping for the state exam.

Teachers trust CommonLit to foster students' reading comprehension

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CommonLit | Free Online Reading Passages and Literacy Resources

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CommonLit is a comprehensive literacy program with thousands of reading lessons, full-year ELA curriculum, benchmark assessments, and standards-based data for teachers.

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Literacy Teaching Resources – Teach Starter

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Literacy Teaching Resources – Teach Starter

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Writing Teaching Resources - Teach Starter

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An extensive collection of writing teaching resources to assist your students with editing, handwriting, paragraphs and exploring text types. This collection includes educational worksheets, unit and lesson plans, banners that can be customized for your classroom, handwriting sheets that can be customized, posters with hints and techniques, hands-on activities, games and much more!

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Achievethecore.org has lessons, student writing samples, assessment tools, etc. A very good website that is standard aligned

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Achievethecore.org has lessons, student writing samples, assessment tools, etc. A very good website that is standard aligned

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Provide relevant texts that consider complexity, academic success, cultural competence, and critical consciousness.

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A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Argumentative Writing | Cult of Pedagogy

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A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Argumentative Writing | Cult of Pedagogy

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
This page contains Amazon Affiliate and Bookshop.org links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. What's the difference between Amazon and Bookshop.org?

For seven years, I was a writing teacher. Yes, I was certified to teach the full spectrum of English language arts-literature, grammar and usage, speech, drama, and so on-but my absolute favorite, the thing I loved doing the most, was teaching students how to write.

Most of the material on this site is directed at all teachers. I look for and put together resources that would appeal to any teacher who teaches any subject. That practice will continue for as long as I keep this up. But over the next year or so, I plan to also share more of what I know about teaching students to write. Although I know many of the people who visit here are not strictly English language arts teachers, my hope is that these posts will provide tons of value to those who are, and to those who teach all subjects, including writing.

So let's begin with argumentative writing, or persuasive writing, as many of us used to call it. This overview will be most helpful to those who are new to teaching writing, or teachers who have not gotten good results with the approach you have taken up to now. I don't claim to have the definitive answer on how to do this, but the method I share here worked pretty well for me, and it might do the same for you. If you are an experienced English language arts teacher, you probably already have a system for teaching this skill that you like. Then again, I'm always interested in how other people do the things I can already do; maybe you're curious like that, too.

Before I start, I should note that what I describe in this post is a fairly formulaic style of essay writing. It's not exactly the 5-paragraph essay, but it definitely builds on that model. I strongly believe students should be shown how to move past those kinds of structures into a style of writing that's more natural and fitting to the task and audience, but I also think they should start with something that's pretty clearly organized.

So here's how I teach argumentative essay writing.

Step 1: Watch How It's Done

One of the most effective ways to improve student writing is to show them mentor texts, examples of excellent writing within the genre students are about to attempt themselves. Ideally, this writing would come from real publications and not be fabricated by me in order to embody the form I'm looking for. Although most experts on writing instruction employ some kind of mentor text study, the person I learned it from best was Katie Wood Ray in her book Study Driven (links to the book: Bookshop.org | Amazon).

Since I want the writing to be high quality and the subject matter to be high interest, I might choose pieces like Jessica Lahey's Students Who Lose Recess Are the Ones Who Need it Most and David Bulley's School Suspensions Don't Work.

I would have students read these texts, compare them, and find places where the authors used evidence to back up their assertions. I would ask students which author they feel did the best job of influencing the reader, and what suggestions they would make to improve the writing. I would also ask them to notice things like stories, facts and statistics, and other things the authors use to develop their ideas. Later, as students work on their own pieces, I would likely return to these pieces to show students how to execute certain writing moves.

Step 2: Informal Argument, Freestyle

Although many students might need more practice in writing an effective argument, many of them are excellent at arguing in person. To help them make this connection, I would have them do some informal debate on easy, high-interest topics. An activity like This or That (one of the classroom icebreakers I talked about last year) would be perfect here: I read a statement like "Women have the same opportunities in life as men." Students who agree with the statement move to one side of the room, and those who disagree move to the other side. Then they take turns explaining why they are standing in that position. This ultimately looks a little bit like a debate, as students from either side tend to defend their position to those on the other side.

Every class of students I have ever had, from middle school to college, has loved loved LOVED this activity. It's so simple, it gets them out of their seats, and for a unit on argument, it's an easy way to get them thinking about how the art of argument is something they practice all the time.

Step 3: Informal Argument, Not so Freestyle

Once students have argued without the support of any kind of research or text, I would set up a second debate; this time with more structure and more time to research ahead of time. I would pose a different question, supply students with a few articles that would provide ammunition for either side, then give them time to read the articles and find the evidence they need.

Next, we'd have a Philosophical Chairs debate (learn about this in my discussion strategies post), which is very similar to "This or That," except students use textual evidence to back up their points, and there are a few more rules. Here they are still doing verbal argument, but the experience should make them more likely to appreciate the value of evidence when trying to persuade.

Before leaving this step, I would have students transfer their thoughts from the discussion they just had into something that looks like the opening paragraph of a written argument: A statement of their point of view, plus three reasons to support that point of view. This lays the groundwork for what's to come.

Step 4: Introduction of the Performance Assessment

Next I would show students their major assignment, the performance assessment that they will work on for the next few weeks. What does this look like? It's generally a written prompt that describes the task, plus the rubric I will use to score their final product.

Anytime I give students a major writing assignment, I let them see these documents very early on. In my experience, I've found that students appreciate having a clear picture of what's expected of them when beginning a writing assignment. At this time, I also show them a model of a piece of writing that meets the requirements of the assignment. Unlike the mentor texts we read on day 1, this sample would be something teacher-created (or an excellent student model from a previous year) to fit the parameters of the assignment.

Step 5: Building the Base

Before letting students loose to start working on their essays, I make sure they have a solid plan for writing. I would devote at least one more class period to having students consider their topic for the essay, drafting a thesis statement, and planning the main points of their essay in a graphic organizer.

I would also begin writing my own essay on a different topic. This has been my number one strategy for teaching students how to become better writers. Using a document camera or overhead projector, I start from scratch, thinking out loud and scribbling down my thoughts as they come. When students see how messy the process can be, it becomes less intimidating for them. They begin to understand how to take the thoughts that are stirring around in your head and turn them into something that makes sense in writing.

For some students, this early stage might take a few more days, and that's fine: I would rather spend more time getting it right at the pre-writing stage than have a student go off willy-nilly, draft a full essay, then realize they need to start over. Meanwhile, students who have their plans in order will be allowed to move on to the next step.

Step 6: Writer's Workshop

The next seven to ten days would be spent in writer's workshop, where I would start class with a mini-lesson about a particular aspect of craft. I would show them how to choose credible, relevant evidence, how to skillfully weave evidence into an argument, how to consider the needs of an audience, and how to correctly cite sources. Once each mini-lesson was done, I would then give students the rest of the period to work independently on their writing. During this time, I would move around the room, helping students solve problems and offering feedback on whatever part of the piece they are working on. I would encourage students to share their work with peers and give feedback at all stages of the writing process.

If I wanted to make the unit even more student-centered, I would provide the mini-lessons in written or video format and let students work through them at their own pace, without me teaching them. (To learn more about this approach, read this post on self-paced learning).

As students begin to complete their essays, the mini-lessons would focus more on matters of style and usage. I almost never bother talking about spelling, punctuation, grammar, or usage until students have a draft that's pretty close to done. Only then do we start fixing the smaller mistakes.

Step 7: Final Assessment

Finally, the finished essays are handed in for a grade. At this point, I'm pretty familiar with each student's writing and have given them verbal (and sometimes written) feedback throughout the unit; that's why I make the writer's workshop phase last so long. I don't really want students handing in work until they are pretty sure they've met the requirements to the best of their ability. I also don't necessarily see "final copies" as final; if a student hands in an essay that's still really lacking in some key areas, I will arrange to have that student revise it and resubmit for a higher grade.

So that's it. If you haven't had a lot of success teaching students to write persuasively, and if the approach outlined here is different from what you've been doing, give it a try. And let's keep talking: Use the comments section below to share your techniques or ask questions about the most effective ways to teach argumentative writing.

Want this unit ready-made?

If you're a writing teacher in grades 7-12 and you'd like a classroom-ready unit like the one described above, including mini-lessons, sample essays, and a library of high-interest online articles to use for gathering evidence, take a look at my Argumentative Writing unit. Just click on the image below and you'll be taken to a page where you can read more and see a detailed preview of what's included.

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A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Argumentative Writing

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The art of persuasion is an essential life skill. It also happens to be part of the required curriculum for many, many teachers. In this post, I'll share my method for teaching argumentative writing.

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Log in to i-Ready®, online assessment and instruction that helps teachers provide all students a path to proficiency and growth in reading and mathematics.

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