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Kinder

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Literacy Trekker on The Second Industrial Revolution

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Literacy Trekker The Mixed Up Chameleon 

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Literacy Trekker The Mixed Up Chameleon 

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Top 6 Websites Offering Free Leveled Reading Passages

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Top 6 Websites Offering Free Leveled Reading Passages

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Our Education Blogger is a public school teacher with over a decade of experience. She's an active NEA member and enjoys writing about her experiences in the classroom.

Struggling to find quality, leveled reading passages for your students? Look no further! We're sharing our favorite websites that offer free, high-quality, leveled reading passages.

Top 6 Websites Offering Free Leveled Reading Passages
CommonLit.org
CommonLit delivers high-quality, free instructional materials to support literacy development for students in grades 5-12. Our resources are flexible, research-based, aligned to the Common Core State Standards, created by teachers for teachers. We believe in the transformative power of a great text, and a great question.
ReadWorks.org
The nonprofit ReadWorks provides K-12 teachers with what to teach and how to teach it-online, for free, to be shared broadly. We provide the largest, highest-quality library of curated nonfiction and literary articles in the country, along with reading comprehension and vocabulary lessons, formative assessments, and teacher guidance. Most importantly, everything ReadWorks does is based on proven cognitive science research, not unproven academic theory.
ReadingVine.com
Free grade leveled reading passages for use in the classroom or at home. Filter by genre, grade, topic, skill, and more.
K5Learning.com
Free reading comprehension worksheets for grades 1-5. Use these free, printable worksheets to practice and improve reading comprehension, vocabulary and writing. Each reading passage is followed by exercises which for younger students focus on recalling information directly from the text and for older students focus on prediction, inference and character traits.
LearnZillion.com
Browse 5-day close reading modules, as well as text-based reading and writing skill videos, for free!
TweenTribune.com
A free teacher tool from Smithsonian Teacher, offering daily AP news articles, Lexile® leveled for K-12, self-scoring quizzes customized by Lexile® level, critical thinking questions, student commenting, Espanol AP articles, weekly lesson plans, weekly video, and weekend "Monday Morning Ready" newsletter as prep for the week ahead.

Have a reading passage, but aren't sure what its Lexile level is? Try Lexile Analyzer to evaluate any passage. Registered educators (it's free for you!) have a 1,000 word limit.

We'd love to hear from you! In the comment section below, let us know your favorite sites to find leveled reading passages
This article is furnished by California Casualty, providing auto and home insurance to educators, law enforcement officers, firefighters, and nurses. Get a quote at 1.866.704.8614 or www.calcas.com.

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Top 6 Websites Offering Free Leveled Reading Passages - California Casualty

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Our Education Blogger is a public school teacher with over a decade of experience. She's an active NEA member and enjoys writing about her experiences in the classroom. Struggling to find quality, leveled reading passages for your students? Look no further! We're sharing our favorite websites that offer free, high-quality, leveled reading passages.

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Literacy Trekker Effects of Early Colonization

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Literacy Trekker Effects of Early Colonization

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4- Literacy Trekker on the effects of colonial settlement on Native American populations (print in COLOR)

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Article to accompany Literacy trekker on colonial settlement on Native American population

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Article to accompany Literacy trekker on colonial settlement on Native American population

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5- Effects of colonial settlement on Native American populations (print in COLOR)

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Michael Belmarez

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Choice assessment

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Shastein and Beverly
Choice assignment/assessment

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Choice Assignment- Kindergarten

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

Coming soon! UDL Guidelines 3.0

The UDL Guidelines are a living, dynamic tool that is continuously developed based on new research and feedback from practitioners. In 2020, CAST launched our most recent effort to update the UDL Guidelines, with a specific focus on equity. There has been a strong call from the field-both practitioners and researchers alike-to more fully develop the Guidelines to address critical barriers rooted in biases and systems of oppression. The current update aims to respond to this call and to work toward fulfilling the promise of the Guidelines as a tool to guide the design of learning environments that more fully honor and value every learner.

Since our launch in 2020, we have been committed to a community-driven, inclusive, and transparent updating process. As part of this effort, we are:

Collaborating with an Advisory Board, a UDL Guidelines Collaborative, and a Young Adult Advisory Board to guide our work

Conducting focus groups with a diversity of participants to learn from their perspectives, lived experiences, and feedback

Reviewing the research on the UDL Guidelines research pages to understand the balance of different research fields, methodological approaches, epistemological approaches, and author positionalities

Conducting literature reviews of equity-oriented research that connect to and extend the Guidelines, such as disability studies and critical pedagogy studies

We are excited to share this next iteration of the UDL Guidelines in 2024. If you are interested in receiving our UDL Guidelines 3.0 newsletter to stay updated on our progress and to share your ideas and perspectives, please complete this brief form.

Review the Summary

Explore the Full Draft

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST.

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Several examples of rubrics that can be found on the web are linked below to aid in the development of rubrics for post secondary education settings.

Template for Creating a Rubric

The below link is to a MSWord file that contains a template for a rubric and instructions for how to use and modify the template to meet individual grading needs. Instructors can download this file and modify it as needed to construct their own rubric.

The AAC&U VALUE initiative (2007-09) developed 16 VALUE rubrics for the LEAP Essential Learning Outcomes. Elements and descriptors for each rubric were based on the most frequently identified characteristics or criteria of learning for each of the 16 learning outcomes. Drafts of each rubric have been tested by faculty with their own students' work on over 100 college campuses.

The VALUE rubrics contribute to the national dialogue on assessment of college student learning. The AAC&U web is widely used by individuals working in schools, higher education associations, colleges, and universities in the United States and around the world.

Instructors can use the rubrics in their current form. They can also modify the language and rubric elements to meet the specific needs of their assignment or assessment goal.

Access to the VALUE Rubrics is free. AAC&U requests that users register before downloading PDF or Word versions of the rubrics to assist their research on rubric use.

External link to AAC&U Rubric download page: http://www.aacu.org/value-rubrics

Collections of Rubric Links

Computer Science Projects

Interactive Quality of an Online Course

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Several examples of rubrics that can be found on the web are linked below to aid in the development of rubrics for post secondary education settings. The below link is to a MSWord file that contains a template for a rubric and instructions for how to use and modify the template to meet individual grading needs.

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How to Create a Rubric: Introduction

Perhaps you have never even thought about the care it takes to create a rubric. Perhaps you have never even heard of a rubric and its usage in education, in which case, you should take a peek at this article: "What is a rubric?" Basically, this tool that teachers and professors use to help them communicate expectations, provide focused feedback, and grade products, can be invaluable when the correct answer is not as cut and dried as Choice A on a multiple choice test. But creating a great rubric is more than just slapping some expectations on a paper, assigning some percentage points, and calling it a day. A good rubric needs to be designed with care and precision in order to truly help teachers distribute and receive the expected work.

Steps to Create a Rubric

The following six steps will help you when you decide to use a rubric for assessing an essay, a project, group work, or any other task that does not have a clear right or wrong answer.

Before you can create a rubric, you need to decide the type of rubric you'd like to use, and that will largely be determined by your goals for the assessment.

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. How detailed do I want my feedback to be?

2. How will I break down my expectations for this project?

3. Are all of the tasks equally important?

4. How do I want to assess performance?

5. What standards must the students hit in order to achieve acceptable or exceptional performance?

6. Do I want to give one final grade on the project or a cluster of smaller grades based on several criteria?

7. Am I grading based on the work or on participation? Am I grading on both?

Once you've figured out how detailed you'd like the rubric to be and the goals you are trying to reach, you can choose a type of rubric.

Step 2: Choose a Rubric Type

Although there are many variations of rubrics, it can be helpful to at least have a standard set to help you decide where to start. Here are two that are widely used in teaching as defined by DePaul University's Graduate Educational department:

1. Analytic Rubric: This is the standard grid rubric that many teachers routinely use to assess students' work. This is the optimal rubric for providing clear, detailed feedback. With an analytic rubric, criteria for the students' work is listed in the left column and performance levels are listed across the top. The squares inside the grid will typically contain the specs for each level. A rubric for an essay, for example, might contain criteria like "Organization, Support, and Focus," and may contain performance levels like "(4) Exceptional, (3) Satisfactory, (2) Developing, and (1) Unsatisfactory."​ The performance levels are typically given percentage points or letter grades and a final grade is typically calculated at the end. The scoring rubrics for the ACT and SAT are designed this way, although when students take them, they will receive a holistic score.

2. Holistic Rubric: This is the type of rubric that is much easier to create, but much more difficult to use accurately. Typically, a teacher provides a series of letter grades or a range of numbers (1-4 or 1-6, for example) and then assigns expectations for each of those scores. When grading, the teacher matches the student work in its entirety to a single description on the scale. This is useful for grading multiple essays, but it does not leave room for detailed feedback on student work.

Step 3: Determine Your Criteria

This is where the learning objectives for your unit or course come into play. Here, you'll need to brainstorm a list of knowledge and skills you would like to assess for the project. Group them according to similarities and get rid of anything that is not absolutely critical. A rubric with too much criteria is difficult to use! Try to stick with 4-7 specific subjects for which you'll be able to create unambiguous, measurable expectations in the performance levels. You'll want to be able to spot the criteria quickly while grading and be able to explain them quickly when instructing your students. In an analytic rubric, the criteria are typically listed along the left column.

Step 4: Create Your Performance Levels

Once you have determined the broad levels you would like students to demonstrate mastery of, you will need to figure out what type of scores you will assign based on each level of mastery. Most ratings scales include between three and five levels. Some teachers use a combination of numbers and descriptive labels like "(4) Exceptional, (3) Satisfactory, etc." while other teachers simply assign numbers, percentages, letter grades or any combination of the three for each level. You can arrange them from highest to lowest or lowest to highest as long as your levels are organized and easy to understand.

Step 5: Write Descriptors for Each Level of Your Rubric

This is probably your most difficult step in creating a rubric.Here, you will need to write short statements of your expectations underneath each performance level for every single criteria. The descriptions should be specific and measurable. The language should be parallel to help with student comprehension and the degree to which the standards are met should be explained.

Again, to use an analytic essay rubric as an example, if your criteria was "Organization" and you used the (4) Exceptional, (3) Satisfactory, (2) Developing, and (1) Unsatisfactory scale, you would need to write the specific content a student would need to produce to meet each level. It could look something like this:

Organization
Organization is coherent, unified, and effective in support of the paper's purpose and
consistently demonstrates
effective and appropriate
transitions
between ideas and paragraphs.

Organization is coherent and unified in support of the paper's purpose and usually demonstrates effective and appropriate transitions between ideas and paragraphs.

Organization is coherent in
support of the essay's purpose, but is ineffective at times and may demonstrate abrupt or weak transitions between ideas or paragraphs.

Organization is confused and fragmented. It does not support the essay's purpose and demonstrates a
lack of structure or coherence that negatively
affects readability.

A holistic rubric would not break down the essay's grading criteria with such precision. The top two tiers of a holistic essay rubric would look more like this:

6 = Essay demonstrates excellent composition skills including a clear and thought-provoking thesis, appropriate and effective organization, lively and convincing supporting materials, effective diction and sentence skills, and perfect or near perfect mechanics including spelling and punctuation. The writing perfectly accomplishes the objectives of the assignment.

5 = Essay contains strong composition skills including a clear and thought-provoking thesis, but development, diction, and sentence style may suffer minor flaws. The essay shows careful and acceptable use of mechanics. The writing effectively accomplishes the goals of the assignment.

Step 6: Revise Your Rubric

After creating the descriptive language for all of the levels (making sure it is parallel, specific and measurable), you need to go back through and limit your rubric to a single page. Too many parameters will be difficult to assess at once, and may be an ineffective way to assess students' mastery of a specific standard. Consider the effectiveness of the rubric, asking for student understanding and co-teacher feedback before moving forward. Do not be afraid to revise as necessary. It may even be helpful to grade a sample project in order to gauge the effectiveness of your rubric. You can always adjust the rubric if need be before handing it out, but once it's distributed, it will be difficult to retract.

Teacher Resources:

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Wondering how to create a rubric for your classroom? Check out the six steps you need to design an effective rubric to assess your students' next essay or project.

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A format that provides students with personalized feedback and works to keep them from focusing solely on their grade.

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2- Impact of Colonization- Choice Assessment

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Guide appropriate goal setting. Executive functions.
Highlight patterns, critical features. big ideas and relationships. Provide options for comprehension.
Optimize individual choice and autonomy. Vary demands and resources to optimize challenges.

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Homework Template_ DO NOT POST TO PADLET

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Homework Template_ DO NOT POST TO PADLET

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1- Scaffolded Reading homework- Literacy Trekker

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Diana, Jac, Scott
3 Essential ingredients of UDL.
Are my goals clear? Am I intentionally planning for variability? How can I change the context of my class? Nurture individual potential!

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Minimize threats and distractions
I will implement this by keeping the students engaged by keeping them on the edge of the seat.

Optimize access to tools and assistive technologies.  How: Allow students to use technology to express knowledge like using speech recognition software audio books etc.

Illustrate through multiple media How: Offer visuals such as clips and things for students to touch or manipulate.

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goals, variability and context are the three essential ingredients. goals are clear and concise, variability is the rule not the exception and context dont change the students is it alterable or is it redeemable

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As I plan I will make sure:
Are my goals clear?
Am I intentionally planning for the variability in my class ?
If it is alterable and relevant...change it, if no, let it go

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the three essential ingredients are goals which should be clear and concise and the next is variability is the rule not the exception and lastly, context - dont change the student but change the context.

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the three essential ingredients are goals which should be clear and concise and the next is variability is the rule not the exception and lastly, context - dont change the student but change the context.

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Michael Belmarez

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Goals: methods and content are clear

Variability: 3 Principles
Engagement - first step
Representation
Action and Expression

Context: Change context not learners
Framework
Support
Scaffold

Kristine

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In order to effectively teach all students, teachers need to communicate clear goals, intentionally plan variability (why, what, and how) and change the context when necessary (alterable, relevant - change it!)

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Lizz and Shastein
Trifecta that deals with goals, variability and context. There are 3 important questions to ask yourself while planning:
1. Are my goals clear?
2. Am I intentionally planning for the variability in my class?
3. How can I change the context of my class, not my students?
Jon Mundorf said, ‘I would rather teach in an accessible way to an inaccessible test, than in an inaccessible way for an inaccessible test.’

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The three UDL essential ingredients are goals,variability, and context.  Goals must be clear to the students.  There is no average way of teaching, so variability is very important to the UDL design. Also, in the UDL learning model, it is imperative to change the context not the student.  Students have strengths and weaknesses, so that is why the UDL design works to help all students succeed.  

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The three UDL essential ingredients are goals,variability, and context.  Goals must be clear to the students.  There is no average way of teaching, so variability is very important to the UDL design. Also, in the UDL learning model, it is imperative to change the context not the student.  Students have strengths and weaknesses, so that is why the UDL design works to help all students succeed.  

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Tamara S

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Have a trifecta of clear goals, variability and context.  Utilize Engagement, Representation and Action & Expression for learning guidelines.  Jon Mudorf says it best “I would rather teach in an accessible way to an inaccessible test, than in an inaccessible way for an inaccessible test.”

Tonia & Beverly

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Goal Describe 3 essentials UDL ingredients. 

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Goal Describe 3 essentials UDL ingredients. 

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Three essential elements are Engagement which is the why of learning, representation which is the what of learning, and action and response which represents the how of learning.
MEG

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There is no such thing as average and brains are goal oriented. Make sure your goals are clear, your students are engaged and remember you can change the context.

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I am fortunate to teach students.

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My name is Tamara Sanoguet and I am an ESE teacher K-2 at Groveland elementary.

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My name is Tamara Sanoguet and I am an ESE teacher K-2 at Groveland elementary.

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Scott

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Jac, Diana

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Michael Belmarez

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Nicole Sanservino

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I work for FDLRS Action.  I love spending time with my family and reading books.

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I work for the Florida Inclusion Network and support districts, schools, and families with inclusion. In my spare time I enjoy playing pickleball.

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Hello :) I work at district in Orange County Public Schools. I am an ESE Resource teacher. In my spare time, I love to listen to audiobooks.

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Hi everyone!  I work in Lake County as in ESE teacher.  In my spare time, I love shopping, reading and working out.

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I work at Triangle Elementary as a 4th and 5th grade ESE inclusion teacher. I enjoy golfing, boating, and listening to music.

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I am an ESE Teacher at Oak Park Middle. I love spending time with my daughter.

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I am an ACCESS Teacher at Leesburg High school. I like to go to Disney and SeaWorld in my spare time.

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I am ESE School Specialist at Clermont Elementary School. I enjoy spending time with my grandchildren.

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I'm an ESE learning strategies teacher at Tavares middle school. I look forward to these next few days together.

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Hi! I am a 3rd grade teacher at Astatula Elementary School. I am looking for new "doable" strategies to help all of my students become higher achievers.

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Hey, I am the art teacher at Astatula Elementary School. I love spending time with my family and fur-babies.

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Hi (: I am an inclusion 4th and 5th grade ESE teacher at Clermont Elementary school. I enjoy spending time with my family in my spare time.

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I teach Fifth Grade at Triangle Elementary School.  I enjoy traveling, history, yoga, biking.

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Lizz Schlotter, I am the Literacy Coach at Mt. Dora High School.

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Lizz Schlotter, I am the Literacy Coach at Mt. Dora High School.

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Hi, I am Rachael Alfrey. I am an ESE Specialist doing Support Facilitation in English and also teaching 12th grade Government at Leesburg High School. In my free time, I enjoy spend time with my husband and 2 dogs.

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Hi, I am Rachael Alfrey. I am an ESE Specialist doing Support Facilitation in English and also teaching 12th grade Government at Leesburg High School. In my free time, I enjoy spend time with my husband and 2 dogs.

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Hi, my name is M.E. Gordon and I am currently a Literacy coach at Clermont Middle School. 

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Hi, my name is M.E. Gordon and I am currently a Literacy coach at Clermont Middle School. 

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1- Clear goal, flexible means activity edition 2