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Phonics instruction teaches common letter-sound relationships, including sounds for common letter patterns, so that readers can apply them in decoding unfamiliar words.

The purpose of phonics instruction

Only a small percentage of English words have irregular spellings and letter-sound relationships. This means that nearly all English words can be read by applying knowledge of letter-sound relationships and blending sounds together to form a whole word. To learn more, see How Words Cast Their Spell.

Being able to decode words effortlessly (convert spelling into speech sounds) means children are able to focus their attention on comprehending what they read.

Beginning phonics lessons

Regardless of grade, start phonics lessons with consonant letter sounds that are easy to pronounce and less often confused with similar letter sounds. This enables students to master one letter sound before having to learn a similar letter sound. For example, students may confuse the letter sounds for t and d. Since the letter t is more common, instruction should introduce t many lessons before introducing d.

Learning sounds for letters is basically rote learning, and for rote learning, the use of memory cues can be very helpful. For instance, for short a, children can learn that the letter a looks like an apple with a broken stem, and short a represents /a/ as in apple. Multi-sensory activities, such as repeatedly tracing the vowel letter and saying its sound, are often useful as well.

Start explicit phonics instruction with short vowel words because these vowels have one predictable spelling (with few exceptions) and are the most commonly occurring vowel sounds in English. Because the short vowel sounds are highly confusable, they should be taught individually, not all at the same time.

Phonics Terms

Phoneme
The smallest unit of sound in our spoken language. Pronouncing the wordcat involves blending three phonemes: /k/ /ae/ /t/.

Grapheme
A written letter or a group of letters representing one speech sound. Examples:b, sh, ch, igh, eigh.

Onset
An initial consonant or consonant cluster. In the wordname, n is the onset; in the word blue, bl is the onset.

Rime
The vowel or vowel and consonant(s) that follow the onset. In the wordname, ame is the rime.

Digraph
Two letters that represent one speech sound (diphthong). Examples:sh, ch, th, ph.

Vowel digraph
Two letters that together make one vowel sound. Examples:ai, oo, ow.

Schwa
The vowel sound sometimes heard in an unstressed syllable and that most often sounds like /uh/ or the short /u/ sound. Example: the "a" inagain or balloon. All English vowels have a schwa sound.

Morpheme
The smallest meaningful units of language. The wordcat is a morpheme. Not all morphemes stand alone as words; some are attached to words, usually as affixes. These are called bound morphemes. Examples include: non-, -est, -ing, -er, -ion.

Kindergarten phonics lessons

Phonics lessons in kindergarten focus on students becoming automatic at letter naming, single-grapheme letter sounds, and reading single-syllable words with short vowel spellings. Instruction may include common digraphs ( ch, sh, th, wh, and ck). For some kindergarten students, articulating some consonant sounds may be difficult, but this does not prevent them from reading and comprehending words with those sounds.

To learn more about when kids learn different consonant sounds, see this Speech-Sound Development chart.

First grade phonics lessons

In first grade, phonics lessons start with the most common single-letter graphemes and digraphs ( ch, sh, th, wh, and ck). Continue to practice words with short vowels and teach trigraphs ( tch, dge). When students are proficient with earlier skills, teach consonant blends (such as tr, cl, and s p).

Ensure students understand the difference between blends, digraphs, and trigraphs: that each letter in a blend retains its own sound, while the letters in digraphs and trigraphs represent one sound.

In first grade, we may also include two-syllable words with short vowel sounds (e.g., cat∙fish, pic∙nic, kit∙chen). Inflectional endings such as ing, er, and s would also be included. When students have mastered short vowel spelling patterns, introduce r-controlled (e.g., er, ur, or, ar), long vowel (e.g., oa, ee, ai), and other vowel sound spellings (e.g., oi, aw, oo, ou, ow).

Teaching of common syllable types is also very useful for first-graders. By the end of first grade, typical readers should be able to decode a wide range of phonetically regular one-syllable words with all of these letter patterns and syllable types, including one-syllable words with common inflectional endings (e.g., sliding, barked, sooner, floated).

Teaching syllable types in first grade

Teaching children about syllable types is useful because vowel sounds in English vary, and knowledge about syllable types can help children determine the vowel sound of a one-syllable word. Later, once they have learned some rules for dividing long words, children can also apply their knowledge of syllable types to decode two-syllable and multisyllabic words.

Instruction in syllable types should focus on children's abilities to classify words correctly (e.g., sort one-syllable words that are closed from one-syllable words that are not closed) rather than on children's abilities to recite rules or definitions. However, it is very important for us to present clear, consistent definitions of the syllable types, in order to avoid inadvertently confusing instruction.

The six syllable types common in English are closed, silent e, open, vowel combination, vowel r, and consonant- le. The chart below lists these syllable types along with their typical vowel sounds, definitions, some examples, and some additional comments.

The specific order in which syllable types are taught can vary substantially, depending on the phonics program being used. However, the closed syllable type is usually taught first, because closed syllables are common in English, and it is virtually impossible to write even a very simple story for children that contains no closed syllables. Conversely, consonant-le syllables always occur as part of two-syllable (or longer) words, so that syllable type would often be taught last.

Syllable Type (Synonyms)

Vowel Sound

Definition

Examples

Comments

Closed

Short

Has only one vowel and ends in a consonant.

splash, lend, in, top, ask, thump, frog, mess

The main prerequisite when children learn the closed syllable type is that they first have to be able to classify letters as either vowels or consonants.

Long

Has a -VCE pattern (one vowel, followed by one consonant, followed by a silent e that ends the syllable)

plane, tide, use, chime, theme, ape, stroke, hope

Words like noise, prince, and dance are not silent e, even though they end in a silent e, because they do not have the -VCE pattern; noise has a -VVCE pattern and prince and dance have a -VCCE pattern.

Open

Long

Has only one vowel that is the last letter of the syllable.

he, she, we, no, go, flu, by, spy

This syllable type becomes especially useful as children progress to two-syllable words. For example, the ti in title, lo in lotion, and ra in raven are all open syllables.

Vowel combination (vowel team)

Varies depending on the specific vowel pattern; children must memorize sounds for these individual vowel patterns.

Has a vowel pattern in it (e.g., ay, ai, aw, all, ie, igh, ow, ee, ea).

stay, plain, straw, fall, pie, piece, night, grow, cow

Vowel patterns do not always involve two vowels but can also consist of a vowel plus consonants, if this pattern has a consistent sound (e.g, igh almost always represents long /i/; all almost always represents /all/). Also, some vowel patterns can have more than one sound. For example, ow can represent long /o/ as in grow or /ow/ as in cow. For these patterns, children learn both sounds and, when decoding an unfamiliar word, they try both sounds to see which one makes a real word.

Varies depending on the specific vowel r unit; children must memorize sounds for these units (e.g., ar, er, ir, or, ur).

Has only one vowel followed immediately by an r

ark, charm, her, herd, stir, born, fork, urn

Does not include words in which the vowel r unit is followed by an e (e.g., stare, cure, here) or in which the r follows a vowel combination (e.g., cheer, fair, board). These words can usually be taught as silent e (in the first case) or vowel combination (in the second).

Consonant- le

Schwa

Has a -CLE pattern (one consonant, followed by an l, followed by a silent e which ends the syllable)

-dle as in candle, -fle as in ruffle, -ple as in maple, -gle as in google, -tle as in title, -ble as in Bible

Consonant- le syllables never stand alone; they always are part of a longer word. Also, they are never the accented syllable of a longer word.

Video: Learning 'b' and 'd' and Reading Short Vowel Words

In this video, reading expert Linda Farrell works with Aiko on a common letter reversal - confusing the letters 'b' and 'd'. Ms. Farrell coaches Aiko to look at the letters during b/d practice and to look at the words while she works with Aiko to read short vowel words accurately. See more videos here: Looking at Reading Interventions.

Second grade, third grade, and beyond

As students enter Grade 2, they should be learning to decode a wide range of two-syllable and then multisyllable (i.e., three syllables or more) words. Instruction in decoding these longer words should include attention to common syllable division patterns and syllabication rules.

Common syllable division patterns

To decode words of more than one syllable, children need a strategy for dividing longer words into manageable parts. They can then decode the individual syllables by applying their knowledge of syllable types and common letter-sound patterns, blending those syllables back into the whole word.

The chart below provides some useful generalizations for teaching students how to divide (syllabicate) two-syllable words with various common patterns, in order to decode them. These generalizations also are useful for decoding multisyllabic words, those with three or more syllables.

Compound

In a compound word, divide between the two smaller words.

back/pack, lamp/shade, bed/room, bath/tub, work/book

To be a true compound word, each of the smaller words must carry meaning in the context of the word (e.g., carpet is not a compound word, because a carpet is not a pet for your car or a car for your pet).

VCCV

If a word has a VCCV (vowel-consonant-consonant-vowel) pattern, divide between the two consonants.

or/bit, ig/loo, tun/nel, lan/tern, tar/get, vel/vet

There is an exception if the two consonants form a consonant digraph (a single sound), as in bishop, rather, gopher, or method. In these cases, treat the word as a VCV word, not VCCV (see below).

-CLE

If a word ends in a consonant-le syllable, always divide immediately before the -CLE.

ma/ple, stum/ble, i/dle, nee/dle, gig/gle, mar/ble, tur/tle

-VCV

If a word has a VCV (vowel-consonant-vowel) pattern, first try dividing before the consonant and sounding out the resulting syllables; if that does not produce a recognizable word, try dividing after the consonant.

hu/mid, ra/ven, mu/sic, go/pher;

plan/et, com/et, tim/id, bish/op, meth/od, rath/er

To recognize the correct alternative, the child needs to have the word in his/her oral vocabulary. If the student does not recognize the correct alternative, we can have them try both options (e.g., hu/mid with a long u vs. hum/id with a short u). Then, if necessary, just tell the child the correct pronunciation of the word, with a brief explanation of its meaning.

Prefix

In word with a prefix, divide immediately after the prefix.

pre/view, mis/trust, un/wise, re/mind, ex/port, un/veil

See below.

Suffix

In a word with a suffix, divide immediately before the suffix.

glad/ly, wise/ly, sad/ness, care/less, hope/ful, frag/ment, state/ment, na/ture, frac/tion

Depending on its origin, the base word in a word containing prefixes or suffixes will not always be a recognizable word. However, the key point is that, when dividing a longer word, prefixes and suffixes are units that always stay together as patterns; never divide in the middle of a prefix or in the middle of a suffix.

Continue explicit phonics instruction through second grade with increasingly complex spelling patterns. By third grade, shift explicit phonics instruction mostly to explicit morphology instruction. Students move from learning about letter/sound relationships to sounds for prefixes, suffixes, roots, base words, and combining forms.

Vocabulary and spelling can be integrated with instruction in reading words. For example, as children learn to read the root geo, they learn that it means earth and that it will have a stable spelling across related words such as geology, geologist, geological, geography, geographic, etc.

Although many word-reading skills are developed by the end of Grade 3, children may be learning some of these skills even beyond Grade 3. Developing an understanding of etymology (word origins) is one example of this more advanced kind of skill for reading words.

For instance, j is pronounced /h/ in words of Spanish origin, and this pronunciation is retained in English words borrowed from Spanish, such as jalapeno and junta.

As another example, words that end in -ique such as boutique, antique, and mystique are borrowed from French and retain the French pronunciation for this pattern, /eek/.

Children do not need to learn sounds for all letter patterns in every language, but if they understand that many words in English are borrowed from other languages, and that these words often retain at least part of their pronunciation in the original language, this can benefit their word reading as well as their spelling.

Phonics lesson planning

Lesson plans for explicit phonics instruction start with a clear, achievable objective. An objective may be learning two to three new consonant sounds, one new vowel sound, or a new phonics concept (e.g., in one-syllable words, ck spells the sound /k/ after one vowel letter and only at the end of a word). Lesson plans will likely span many days and include multiple layers of instruction and practice.

Lesson plans can start with a review and include previously taught concepts throughout the lesson. Lessons pull forward everything taught previously.

New concepts (e.g., letter sounds) are explicitly taught before being practiced. All practice should include an "I do, We do, You do" practice. In "I do," model the activity. In "We do," guide the group through practice. In "You do," have students practice individually and model proficiency.

Build scaffolded instruction and practice into activities. Each subsequent practice activity contains less scaffolding until students are independently proficient. Practice activities move from isolated skills to skills that are more complex. For example:

Students read and spell letter name and letter sounds in isolation.

Students read words sound by sound.

Students read word chunks and word patterns.

Students read whole words, sounding out only to resolve reading errors.

Students spell words sound by sound, and practice spelling chains where only one letter changes from one word to the next (e.g., sap to lap to lip to lit to slit)

Students may learn word meanings to understand sentences and passages, but vocabulary instruction is typically outside the phonics instruction block.

Students read decodable phrases, sentences, and passages once for accuracy and again for fluency.

Students spell short decodable sentences.

Have students read individually for accuracy and again for fluency while reading lists as well as sentences and passages. This need not be included in every activity.

Assess each student's skills individually before introducing new concepts. When individual students have not mastered the objective, use your best judgment. Should the group move forward? Should the individual student receive extra practice? The answer will vary based on the composition of the group and the proportion of students in it who are struggling.

Sample beginning phonics lessons

Phonics lessons flow naturally out of phonemic awareness activities. For example,

In phonemic awareness, ask students to segment words with the sounds short a, /m/, /p/, and /t/.

Explain that the letter m spells the sound /m/, etc.

Have students individually practice saying letter names in isolation.

Have students individually practice reading letter sounds in isolation.

Introduce three to four irregularly spelled high-frequency words to learn by sight.

Ask students to segment words with the sounds short a, /m/, /p/, and /t/, and then arrange letter tiles to spell the segmented words.

Demonstrate how to point to each letter and say the sound. Then blend the letters to read words (called "touch and say" or "touch and read").

Have students individually practice sounding out three to five words, then re-read the words they sounded out previously.

Ask individual students to read a list of words (comprised of only the sounds explicitly taught and practiced to date).

Students read once for accuracy and again for fluency.

When a student misreads a word, guide the student through sounding out the word. Then the student re-reads the whole group of words to the end by reading accurately.

Lead students in a review of the irregularly spelled high-frequency words taught earlier in the lesson and from prior lessons. Learn more in this article, A New Model for Teaching High-Frequency Words.

Guide students through reading phrases, sentences, and (eventually) passages comprised of decodable words with the sounds explicitly taught and practiced to date along with some irregularly spelled high-frequency words.

Students read once for accuracy and again for fluency.

When a student misreads a word, guide the student through sounding out the word. Then the student re-reads the whole phrase, sentence, or portion of the passage to the end by reading accurately.

Students spell letter sounds, decodable words, and short decodable sentences.

Beginning phonics lessons introduce only three or four new consonant sounds and only one new vowel sound in a lesson. Continue with this lesson until all students in the group are reading at 95-98% accuracy on a first attempt. Move to the next lesson, introducing another three or four consonant sounds and another new vowel sound.

Children in a general education classroom will vary widely in how easily they acquire word recognition skills. We should make use of flexible groups to meet the needs of children who can move ahead quickly in their word-reading skills, or conversely, the needs of those who require more practice.

Children who consistently perform at a high rate of mastery in their word recognition skills can focus on other valuable literacy activities such as independent reading and writing, while we are working with flexible groups who require continued phonics instruction.

Phonics lesson routines

Include instructional routines in lesson activities. Instructional routines are repeatable routines used to practice a new skill.

For example, guide the reading group to use "touch and say" to read a list of words containing the lesson's focus letter sounds. The steps for the activity are:

1. Model "touch and say" with one word.

2. Have the group use "touch and say" to read three words together.

3. Have each student use "touch and say" to read five words and then re-read the list without "touch and say."

4. Ask the whole group to read the same five words chorally. Use this routine daily during the phonics lesson as the activity that precedes reading whole words.

Instructional routines reduce students' memory load. Students do not have to remember the steps in a routine while simultaneously remembering the new concept. As a result, routines provide support and stability and improve the pace of the lesson.

Moats, L. and Hall, S. (2010). LETRS Module 7: Teaching Phonics, Word Study, and the Alphabetic Principle (Second Edition). Longmont, CO: Sopris West.

Instruction for all: the value of a multisensory approach

Teaching experience supports a multisensory instruction approach in the early grades to improve phonemic awareness, phonics, and reading comprehension skills. Multisensory instruction combines listening, speaking, reading, and a tactile or kinesthetic activity.

NOTE: Research does not yet have definitive answers about how multisensory instruction works. Literacy expert Tim Shanahan offers this perspective in his blog post, What About Tracing and Other Multisensory Teaching Approaches?.

Phonics instruction lends itself to multisensory teaching techniques, because these techniques can be used to focus children's attention on the sequence of letters in printed words. As such, including manipulatives, gestures, and speaking and auditory cues increases students' acquisition of word recognition skills. An added benefit is that multisensory techniques are quite motivating and engaging to many children.

Multisensory activities provide needed scaffolding to beginning and struggling readers and include visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile activities to enhance learning and memory. As students practice a learned concept, reduce the multisensory scaffolds until the student is using only the visual for reading. Employ the multisensory techniques to fix errors and then practice without the scaffold.

Examples of multisensory phonics activities:

1. Dictate a word using say, touch, and spell. Students say each sound in the word and place a manipulative (e.g., a tile with a letter or letter pattern on it, such as sh, ch, ck) to represent each sound in the word.

For example, when we sayfin, students move the letter tiles for f, i, and n, to spell the word, while at the same time saying and stretching the sounds orally. If we then say fish, students replace the tile with n on it with one that has an sh.

Subsequent examples of words in the chain could bewish, wig, wag, bag, brag, and so on. The activity should use only letter sounds/pattern sounds that children have been taught.

Letter tiles also should represent sounds at the phoneme level. For example,fish would be spelled with three tiles (f, i, sh), because it has three phonemes, whereas brag would be spelled with four tiles (b, r, a, g), reflecting four phonemes.

Place ending spelling patterns and beginning consonants (or consonant blends) on cards. Have students work in pairs and arrange as many words as they can on a table. Do a table walk and have each pair read the words they created. Give other teams an opportunity to create a new word.

2. Organize spelling around the vowel letter. Assign a gesture to each vowel sound. Dictate a word and have students make the gesture for the vowel sound in the word.

3. Assign a gesture to /sh/ and /ch/. Dictate words. Ask students to individually make the gesture associated with /sh/ or /ch/ when they hear those sounds in a word.

4. Paddle pop: Teach letter clusters such as ing and ink. Write these clusters on card stock and staple to popsicle sticks. Dictate words and ask students to pop up the paddle containing the letter cluster in the word.

5. Sounding out words:

Single syllable "touch and read": Students touch each letter with a finger or pencil point and say the letter sound, then sweep left to right below the word and read the word.

Multi syllable touch and read: Students touch each syllable with a finger or pencil point and say the syllable, then sweep left to right below the word and read the word.

Include two or three of these multisensory activities in each lesson: speaking, listening, moving, touching, reading, and writing. They fully engage the brain and make learning more memorable. These activities can be fun games or part of a daily practice routine.

Multisensory activities are the scaffold for early practice. As students become proficient in the new skill or concept, reduce and then remove the multisensory scaffolds.

Adapting instruction for different readers

Research supports explicit phonics instruction for beginning readers and for struggling readers whose reading skills did not develop as expected. Two areas that affect reading acquisition are working memory and executive function.

Working memory refers to the memory we use to hold and manipulate information. For example, when a beginning reader sounds out a word, the student holds the letter shapes, sequence, and sounds in working memory to first sound out the word, then blend the sounds and read the word. Information held in working memory is fragile and held briefly (approximately 10 seconds) unless actively engaged.

If not attended to, the information in working memory vanishes. While this is true for everyone, some of us sustain information in working memory for seconds longer, some for less time. There are techniques that help students practice attending to information in working memory. See the articles, 10 Strategies to Enhance Students' Memories and Making It Stick: Memorable Strategies to Enhance Learning.

Executive function refers to the part of the brain that governs attention, impulse (starting and stopping), organization, reasoning, processing speed, and other higher order functions. It is the area of the brain that gets things done. It is also the last area of the brain to fully mature (mid to late 20s). Learn more: Executive Function Fact Sheet.

To support students who struggle with working memory, attention, executive function, or processing speed issues, the following instructional adaptations can be helpful:

Itemized instructions

Hand out itemized instructions, and discuss what is expected in each step. Teach students how to check each step in a process off the instruction sheet to track work completed. Students with working memory and executive function weaknesses benefit greatly from learning how to use lists.

Intermittent instructions

Whenever possible, provide intermittent instructions so students do not need to remember a long list of steps. Remind the class to check any itemized instructions.

Instructional routines

Use repeated routines to practice skills and complete assignments. Repeated routines are not boring to students. They reduce the memory load on students and enable them to focus on new skills or concepts.

Repeat-safe environment

Build into the explicit instruction, practice, and assessment an opportunity to repeat instructions or information. It can be as simple as, "Anyone need me to repeat that?" or "Can I repeat the instructions for the next steps?" or "Remember. You can always ask me to repeat something." This creates an environment in which students with attention or working memory weaknesses feel safe asking for instructions or information to be repeated.

Rehearsing

Rehearsing can include having students state something aloud before writing. It can also include briefly practicing an activity that will later be assigned as homework. By rehearsing, a procedural memory or episodic memory is created which later supports students when they attempt to work independently.

Note taking

Explicitly teach note taking and build it into classroom routines. Every student will benefit by note taking as a study skill, as a stage of writing, and as an organizational tool. There are different note taking strategies depending on the task. Explicitly teach those note-taking strategies, and build them into lesson procedures. If students learn multiple note-taking strategies, you will need to review with them which one to implement in each setting, especially for students who struggle with working memory or executive function.

Writing aids

Provide a list of words pertinent to the writing assignment which have new or difficult spellings. This reduces the load on working memory by helping remove an obstacle to writing.

Provide an itemized rubric of the things the writing assignment must contain and explicitly teach the class to review their writing for each item on the list. Students with working memory weaknesses cannot easily review their writing for multiple things (e.g., check punctuation at the same time as checking for at least three supporting details and the reasons they support the topic sentence).

Organizational and place-keeping strategies

Being organized and knowing how to break a complex task into subtasks are not always innate skills. This is especially true for students with working memory and executive function weaknesses.

We support all students by taking time to explicitly teach how to be organized: how to organize a binder, how to break a complex task into logical steps, how to allocate time on homework, etc. This requires more time at first, but as the school year progresses, less time is required. Students will benefit from this skill set through the rest of their academic careers.

References

Barkley, R. (1997). Behavioral inhibition, sustained attention, and executive functions: Constructing a unifying theory of ADHD. Psychological Bulletin, 121(1), 65-94.

Gathercole, S. and Alloway, T. (2008). Working memory and learning: A practical guide for teachers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Giedd J., Blumenthal J., Jeffries N., Castellanos F., Liu H., Zijdenbos A., Paus T., Evans A., & Rapoport J. (1999). Brain development during childhood and adolescence: A longitudinal MRI study. Nature Neuroscience 2(10), 861-3.

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Phonics instruction teaches common letter-sound relationships, including sounds for common letter patterns, so that readers can apply them in decoding unfamiliar words. The purpose of phonics instruction In this section: Beginning phonics lessons Kindergarten phonics lessons First grade phonics lessons Second grade, third grade, and beyond Phonics lesson planning Sample beginning phonics lessons Phonics lesson routines Multisensory instruction Adapting instruction for different readers Only a small percentage of English words have irregular spellings and letter-sound relationships.

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Phonological awareness preK-5th

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Kindergarten and First Grade Student Center Activities Phonological Awareness | Phonics | Fluency | Vocabulary | Comprehension

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Yes, yes I'm guilty of participating in one minute timed fluency tests, which encourage students to read as quickly as possible. And if the kid is really experienced in the one minute timed test, he knows that skipping over words is fine because reading as many words as possible is all that matters.

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Sight words instruction is an excellent supplement to phonics instruction. Phonics is a method for learning to read in general, while sight words instruction increases a child's familiarity with the high frequency words he will encounter most often.

Use lesson time to introduce up to three new words, and use game time to practice the new words.

A sight words instruction session should be about 30 minutes long, divided into two components:

Sight Words Lesson - Use our Teaching Techniques to introduce new words and to review words from previous lessons - 10 minutes

Sight Words Games - Use our games to provide reinforcement of the lesson and some review of already mastered sight words to help your child develop speed and fluency - 20 minutes

Video: Introduction to Teaching Sight Words

2.1 Introduce New Words

When first beginning sight words, work on no more than three unfamiliar words at a time to make it manageable for your child. Introduce one word at a time, using the five teaching techniques. Hold up the flash card for the first word, and go through all five techniques, in order. Then introduce the second word, and go through all five teaching techniques, and so on.

This lesson should establish basic familiarity with the new words. This part of a sight words session should be brisk and last no more than ten minutes. As your child gets more advanced, you might increase the number of words you work on in each lesson.

2.2 Review Old Words

Begin each subsequent lesson by reviewing words from the previous lesson. Words often need to be covered a few times for the child to fully internalize them. Remember: solid knowledge of a few words is better than weak knowledge of a lot of words!

Go through the See & Say exercise for each of the review words. If your child struggles to recognize a word, cover that word again in the main lesson, going through all five teaching techniques. If he has trouble with more than two of the review words, then set aside the new words you were planning to introduce and devote that day's lesson to review.

Note: The child should have a good grasp of - but does not need to have completely mastered - a word before it gets replaced in your lesson plan. Use your game time to provide lots of repetition for these words until the child has thoroughly mastered them.

2.3 Reinforce with Games

Learning sight words takes lots of repetition. We have numerous sight words games that will make that repetition fun and entertaining for you and your child.

The games are of course the most entertaining part of the sight words program, but they need to wait until after the first part of the sight words lesson.

Games reinforce what the lesson teaches.
Do not use games to introduce new words.

NOTE: Be sure the child has a pretty good grasp of a sight word before using it in a game, especially if you are working with a group of children. You do not want one child to be regularly embarrassed in front of his classmates when he struggles with words the others have already mastered!

Introduce new sight words using this sequence of five teaching techniques:

1. See & Say - A child sees the word on the flash card and says the word while underlining it with her finger.

2. Spell Reading - The child says the word and spells out the letters, then reads the word again.

3. Arm Tapping - The child says the word and then spells out the letters while tapping them on his arm, then reads the word again.

4. Air Writing - A child says the word, then writes the letters in the air in front of the flash card.

5. Table Writing - A child writes the letters on a table, first looking at and then not looking at the flash card.

These techniques work together to activate different parts of the brain. The exercises combine many repetitions of the word (seeing, hearing, speaking, spelling, and writing) with physical movements that focus the child's attention and cement each word into the child's long-term memory.

The lessons get the child up to a baseline level of competence that is then reinforced by the games, which take them up to the level of mastery. All you need is a flash card for each of the sight words you are covering in the lesson.

Of course, every child will make mistakes in the process of learning sight words. They might get confused between similar-looking words or struggle to remember phonetically irregular words.

Use our Corrections Procedure every time your child makes a mistake in a sight words lesson or game. Simple and straightforward, it focuses on reinforcing the correct identification and pronunciation of the word. It can be done quickly without disrupting the flow of the activity.

Do not scold the child for making a mistake or even repeat the incorrect word. Just reinforce the correct word using our script, and then move on.

Q: Progress is slow. We have been on the same five words for a week!
A: It is not unusual to have to repeat the same set of words several times, especially in the first weeks of sight words instruction. The child is learning how to learn the words and is developing pattern recognition approaches that will speed his progress. Give him time to grow confident with his current set of words, and avoid overwhelming the child with new words when he hasn't yet become familiar with the old words.

Q: Do I really need to do all five techniques for every word?
A: Start out by using all five techniques with each new word. The techniques use different teaching methods and physical senses to support and reinforce the child's memorization of the word. After a few weeks of lessons, you will have a sense for how long it takes your child to learn new words and whether all five exercises are necessary. Start by eliminating the last activity, Table Writing, but be sure to review those words at the next lesson to see if the child actually retained them without that last exercise. If the child learns fine without Table Writing, then you can try leaving out the fourth technique, Air Writing. Children who learn quickly may only need to use two or three of the techniques.

Q: How long will it take to get through a whole word list? I want my child to learn ALL the words!!!
A: That depends on a number of factors, including frequency of your lessons as well as your child's ability to focus. But do not get obsessed with the idea of racing through the word lists to the finish line. It is much, much better for your child to solidly know just 50 words than to "kind of" know 300 words. We are building a foundation here, and we want that foundation to be made of rock, not sand!

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Sight words instruction is an excellent supplement to phonics instruction. Phonics is a method for learning to read in general, while sight words instruction increases a child's familiarity with the high frequency words he will encounter most often. Use lesson time to introduce up to three new words, and use game time to practice the new words.

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1. Informal reading inventories (IRI)

2. Word recognition lists

3. Guided reading passages

4. Cueing systems

5. Running records

6. DIBELS

7. Reading strategies

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Bear, D., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (1996). Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Chard, D., & Dickson, S. (1999). Phonological Awareness: Instructional and Assessment Guidelines.

Ellis, E. (1997). How Now Brown Cow: Phoneme Awareness Activities.

Goswami, U., & Mead, F. (1992). Onset and rime awareness and analogies in reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 2, 153-162.

Wise, B. W., Olson, R. K., & Treiman, R. (1990). Subsyllabic units as aids in beginning readers word learning Onset-rime versus post-vowel segmentation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 4, 1-19.

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The "onset" is the initial phonological unit of any word (e.g. /c/ in cat) and the term "rime" refers to the string of letters that follow, usually a vowel and final consonants (e.g. /a/ /t/ in cat). Not all words have onsets.

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Phonics vs. Phonemic Awareness - Literacy Please

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Phonics includes the relationship between letter(s) and the sounds they make. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear the sounds that make up a word and does not include letters. There's more to the phonics vs. phonemic awareness question, but that's the simple answer.

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Blog Post Clever Classroom Phon Awareness FREE.pdf

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Why is phonological awareness so important?

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Why is phonological awareness so important?

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TPT is the largest marketplace for PreK-12 resources, powered by a community of educators.

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Three Types of Comprehension:

1. Literal

1. Based on what readers see and hear.

2. Often referred to as ‘on the page’ or ‘right there’ comprehension. This is the simplest form of comprehension.

2. Inferential

1. Draw on prior knowledge

2. Often referred to as ‘between the lines’ or ‘think and search’ comprehension. This level of comprehension requires more skill.

3. Evaluative

1.  There is no right or wrong answer but rather justification for thinking in a particular way.

2.  Often referred to as ‘beyond the text’ and includes ‘big picture’ comprehension.

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1. Entry-level (diagnostic)
2. Monitoring of progress/Progress monitoring (informal/formative)
3. Summative (formal)

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XnxhP3C8DwOBY8PF6NPxQRvxtPv700mFE0I1fce7sKk/edit#slide=id.g15d427c5511_0_39

https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies

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1. Word recognition lists

2. Graded reading passages

3. Reading interests survey

4. Assessments measuring concepts about print

5. Phonemic awareness assessments

6. Phonics assessments

7. Assessments of reading fluency

8. Structural analysis assessments

9. Vocabulary assessments

10. Running records

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A multiple choice quiz after reading is a quick and easy way to check student comprehension, but it doesn't allow you to assess deeper understanding and it certainly isn't fun or creative. If you are looking for more meaningful and engaging activities to use with students during literature circles or a novel unit, you'll find twelve ideas below that are favorites in my classroom and the Common Core standards they align with. Click the linked title of each activity for more information, student samples, and/or free resources.

1. Text Based Drawings
Asking students to cite evidence for every single question they answer when reading and responding to a text might be good practice and ensure that they are reading closely, but it also becomes repetitive. One way to mix things up is to ask students to draw a picture and label it based on details from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

2. Summary or Synthesis Tombstones
Assess students' knowledge of an author or character by asking them to summarize their reading or synthesize information from multiple sources. Depending on the assignment, students may share important facts about the individual, reasons why he or she will or would be missed, or events that led up to his or her death.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

Mind maps are a visually appealing summarizing strategy, which can be used to enhance students' recall of information as well as to synthesize information from multiple sources. This strategy can be used with fiction or nonfiction texts and can be added to as student progress in their reading.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

4. Character Silhouettes
Creating character silhouettes is a creative way to conduct a close reading of character or figure from an assigned or selected fiction or nonfiction text. This activity can be used with any grade level, during or after reading any text, and reinforces the ideas of character and characterization while asking students to closely examine evidence from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

5. The Spirits of Christmas
Inspired by A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, students select a character and his/her weaknesses to analyze. After identifying and illustrating scenes that reveal the character's flaws, students determine a message to be shared by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

6. Tweet Sheets
Forget those boring chapter summaries you usually assign to accompany your students' independent reading. Instead, try out "tweet sheets." This activity reinforces characterization and point of view while also allowing students to use their creativity as they explore the characters in their novel.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.6: Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

7. Literary Postcards
Literary postcards are a great writing activity to reinforce the ideas of character and point of view in any novel or short story and can be used with any grade level. Students must depict a key scene from their reading on the front of the postcard and then have choices as to the form of their writing on the opposite side.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.6: Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

8. Personal Crests
Similar to a coat of arms, have students create a crest for a character in a novel. Students will select symbols and colors that represent the character to decorate their crests and then write a short paragraph explaining their choices. Have students compare crests made for the same character and defend why their choices were more appropriate, or hang them all and allow students to vote on the best ones.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

Creating word art is a creative way for students to closely analyze a character and select a symbol representative of the character's traits. You'll be surprised with the creativity of your students and even "non-artistic" students will enjoy this activity on characterization and symbolism.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

10. Theme Collages
Theme is one of the concepts in literature that students struggle with most. Use a simple graphic organizer to help students determine the theme of any piece of writing and then create a collage of text and images to reinforce their theme's message about life.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

11. Collaborative Poetry
Incorporate opportunities for collaborative writing in your classroom by using collaborative poetry. Students will first write individually from a character's perspective and then work together as a group to create a communal piece of writing.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.6: Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

12. Literary Theme Parks
This fun activity makes for a great end of a unit or year project or summer reading assignment. Students will review plot, setting. theme, conflict, characters, and symbolism as they create a poster and give a presentation of their amusement park. After choosing a theme for their park, students will design rides, attractions, shops, food, and souvenirs.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

You can find all of my activities for use with any text here.

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The Literary Maven: 12 Activities to Use During Literature Circles or Your Next Novel Study

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A multiple choice quiz after reading is a quick and easy way to check student comprehension, but it doesn't allow you to assess deeper understanding and it certainly isn't fun or creative.

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The words "book report" can elicit groans from students at any age. Writing a summary of a book isn't necessarily the most effective way to demonstrate learning in the digital age. With summary book websites online, the traditional book report is no longer an enriching task. Here are 25 alternatives to the traditional book report for students to demonstrate their comprehension and deeper understanding of a book.

25 Book Report Alternatives

1. Interview a character from the book. Write a series of questions and answers from the protagonist or antagonist. You can even try focusing on a flat character.

2. Write a diary or journal from the main character's point of view. This can be done in a physical format or through blog posts online. Try a student-friendly blog site like kidblog.org or edublogs.org.

3. Create a stop-motion video of major scenes from the book. Here are some tutorials on using stop motion in education.

4. Draw a comic book version of the book.

5. Give a book talk convincing someone to check out this book from a library.

6. Write a script for a scene or scenes from the book. Cast famous actors as the characters.

7. Create a playlist of songs that go with important moments or characters in the book. Explain the reason you chose each song.

8. Design your own Google Lit Trip for the novel.

9. Make a book jacket for the novel. Look at traditional book jackets for inspiration.

10. Write the climax of the story from a different character's point of view. (If it's in the third person, try telling it in first person or vice versa.)

11. Write an alternate ending for the story.

12. Make a picture book or children's version of your novel.

13. Choose one of the themes (lessons) of the book and write about how it relates to current events.

14. Write a narrative poem based on the plot of the novel.

15. Make a scrapbook for one of the characters in the book.

16. Explain why this book should or should not be read by students in your grade level. Back up your argument with specific evidence from the text.

17. Create a glossary of vocabulary words from the book. Use images and specific sentences and context from the novel.

18. Read a related book (same author, related theme, same series) and compare and contrast them in a short essay or Venn diagram.

19. Create an online Jeopardy game based on themes, characters, plot questions, and other elements from the novel.

20. Write a resume for the main character of the book. Use what you know about the character to make inferences to their experience and qualifications.

21. If the main character is a child, write a short story about an event that happens in their adult life. If the main character is an adult, imagine an event that happened in their childhood and write about it.

22. Create a social media profile (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat) and some posts for a character in the book. Use these templates or create real pages that comply with terms of service.

23. Design the setting in Minecraft. Build a character's home, neighborhood, city, or even country.

24. Make a family tree for the main character of your novel. Create some artifacts (birth certificates, newspaper articles, scrapbook entries, photographs, etc.)

25. Write a letter to the author suggesting changes in the novel.

These 25 ideas will have your student excited about reading and sharing what they learned from their latest book!

Of course, there is nothing wrong with writing a traditional book report, either. Check out this link for a lesson for middle schoolers on writing a book report.

Also published on Medium.

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25 Alternatives to a Traditional Book Report - Modern Homeschool Family

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The words "book report" can elicit groans from students at any age. Writing a summary of a book isn't necessarily the most effective way to demonstrate learning in the digital age. With summary book websites online, the traditional book report is no longer an enriching task.

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Intelligent search from Bing makes it easier to quickly find what you're looking for and rewards you.

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Reading Strategies

What reading strategies do students need to learn, anyway? It would be so nice if the standards would just spell it out for us! Unfortunately, I've never seen that. I've racked my brain and made this cheat sheet of the reading strategies I've frequently seen in teacher's guides, professional books, and trainings. Click the picture for a printable version.

Someone suggested to me that it would be nice to have each of these as a poster so that's exactly what I've done! Sign up for my newsletter and you will be sent a link for a set posters that matches this chart!

Use Background Knowledge: This is the whole Piaget schema theory. The things that we already know about a topic are called our schema. It's helpful to connect new pieces of information to related existing pieces of information. Teach students to ask themselves, "what do I already know about this topic?" before they read a text.

Ask Questions: I like to tell students that we need to keep our brains busy while we read so we don't start to space out. Asking questions (and looking for the answers) is a great way to do this. When you read aloud you can demonstrate this: "hmm, I wonder what the initials V.F.D. stand for in this story. I'm going to be looking for the answer."

Identify the Author's Purpose: There are different ways of reading text. Sometimes we're looking for characters and the problems and solutions in their stories. Other times we're reading to get facts and information. Or sometimes we're reading to hear about someone's opinion and to determine if we agree or disagree. In order to approach a text with the right frame of mind, kids need to be able to identify the author's purpose. See this helpful anchor chart.

Identify the Main Idea: Whether it's a fiction or nonfiction text, teach students to ask themselves "what is this mostly about?" as they read. Here's a main idea anchor chart from my classroom:

Recognize Sequence- Teach students that when they start reading words like, "first...then...after that..." that a sequence is happening. The order of events or steps in a text is important to its meaning. Check out this sequence graphic organizer freebie.

Recognize Cause and Effect - Teach students to notice when one event has caused another. This concept can be taught with silly examples like: cause-Billy didn't brush his teeth, effect- His breath was stinky all day! I point out to students that sometimes its the effect that stands out, and then we can go back into the text and look for the cause.

Make Inferences - Inferences are when you combine something you already know with something you read in a text to arrive at a deeper meaning. For example, if you read an author's description of of a kitchen with a dusting of flour on the counter, egg shells in the sink, and a bag of sugar sitting out, you can infer that someone has been baking because you know that those are common baking ingredients. It's like "reading between the lines."

Make Predictions - This is another way for students to keep their brains busy while they read. Just making the prediction isn't the end of the skill. Students should be checking as they read to see if they were right. Of course they love it when they are right but I also emphasize that even if their prediction was wrong, it's no big deal. We can always change our thinking as we read. The important thing is that there is some thinking going on!

Summarize - This is a skill that seems to show up on tests more than anywhere else but it does lead students to look for the most important events. I tell kids that there's no way we will remember every word of a text so we try to hold just the important events in our minds. For fiction text kids can use the "somebody....wanted....but....so...." model to give a good summary.

This chart can help your students understand where summarizing fits in with other collections of information about text. As the pyramid gets higher, less information about the text is given. The whole text means every word that is read. A summary is less information than the whole text but still covers all the main points or events. Information about the main story elements or the information gained from text features (especially headings) is a little less than a summary. The main idea is a sentence or two telling what the text is mostly about. At the very top of the pyramid is the topic which is just one or two words. You can download a free copy of this chart here.

Distinguish Between Fact and Opinion - With more media available to us all the time from credible and not so credible sources, it's important for kids to identify if a statement they are reading is a fact, or if it's an opinion.

Find Facts and Details- This goes hand in hand with identifying the main idea. When kids state what the book is mostly about, they should be able to go back and point to facts and/or details that support what they are saying.

Recognize Compare and Contrast- This is one of five nonfiction text structures that students should be able to identify. When students notice that an author is using the compare and contrast structure, they can purposely look for ways that two things are alike or different.

Make Connections - This is another extension of using background knowledge. Have students ask themselves "How does this text remind me of myself, another text, or the word?" If they can find a connection, they can gain a deeper understanding of the text.

Visualize - Teach students to make a movie in their head to match what they are reading.

Reread for Clarity- I believe that rereading is the most effective reading strategy. If something you read is confusing, reread. If you don't remember an answer to a comprehension question, reread. When you read aloud, demonstrate for students that when you encounter something that doesn't make sense, you go back and reread some of the text. One half of the strategy is knowing to reread, and the other half is recognizing when you aren't understanding the text.

Adjust Your Pacing - Sometimes it makes sense to read slowly, like if you are encountering difficult vocabulary, long sentences, or an unfamiliar concept. Other times it makes sense to read quickly, like when you're skimming for a particular word or phrase.

Phew! That will be plenty of concepts to keep you busy!

The icons in this post come from Hand Drawn Goods.

Author: Hannah Braun

https://www.theclassroomkey.com

Hannah Braun is a former teacher with 8 years of experience in the classroom and a master's degree in early childhood education. She designs engaging, organized classroom resources for 1st-3rd grade teachers.

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16 Reading Strategies to Teach This Year

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What reading strategies do students need to know? Find out here and keep track with a free chart!

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by TeachThought Staff

Reading is simply a sequence of symbol interpretation.

By understanding that letters make sounds, we can blend those sounds together to make whole sounds that symbolize meaning we can all exchange with one another. By mastering the symbols and their most common contexts, reading becomes a practice in thought-less about decoding and more about understanding.

Without getting too Platonic about it all, reading doesn't change simply because you're reading a text from another content area. Only sometimes it does.

Science content can often by full of jargon, research citations, and odd text features.

Social Studies content can be an interesting mix of itemized information, and traditional paragraphs/imagery.

Literature? Well, that depends on if you mean the flexible form of poetry, the enduring structure of a novel, or emerging digital literature that combines multiple modalities to tell a story.

This all makes reading strategies somewhat content area specific. Stopping (maybe the most undervalued strategy ever) and Rereading might make more sense in science, while Visualization and Text Connections may make more sense reading literary works. Questioning the Text may make equal sense in both.

But if you'd like to start with a basic set of strategies, you could do worse than the elegant graphic above from wiki-teacher.com. (Useful site, by the way.) It lists 12 basic reading comprehension strategies, to which we've added 13 for a full 25.

Looking for related curricula ideas? Check out our Reading Comprehension Strategy Resources
25 Reading Strategies That Work In Every Content Area
1. Reread

2. Activate Prior Knowledge

3. Use Context Clues

4. Infer

5. Think Aloud

6. Summarize

7. Locate Key Words

8. Make Predictions

9. Use Word Attack Strategies

10. Visualize

11. Use Graphic Organizers

12. Evaluate Understanding

See also 7 Strategies For Using Context Clues In Reading
To the above list, we'd add:
13. Question the Text

14. Stop!

15. Monitor & Repair Understanding (While Reading)

16. Paraphrase

17. Annotate the Text

18. Adjust Reading Rate

19. Prioritize Information

20. Use Graphic Notetaking

21. Predict

22. Set a Reader Purpose

23. Text-connections (text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-world)

24. Skim

25. SSQ (Stop, Summarize, Question)

We'll gather these and put them in a Before Reading, During Reading, and After Reading matrix soon. Only because we like you.

See Also: 25 Self-Guided Reading Responses For Fiction And Non-Fiction
25 Reading Strategies That Work In Every Content Area

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25 Reading Strategies That Work In Every Content Area

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Reading strategies useful in every content area include Questioning the text, Visualization, and using Context Clues to infer meaning.

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Close reading is one of those big buzz words in literacy education. But what is close reading, anyway? This post will tell you exactly what it is, plus how to teach it!

Have you heard the term close reading? If you're not sure what it means, you're in good company.

Maybe this definition will help: "The primary objective of close reading is to afford students with the opportunity to assimilate new textual information with their existing background knowledge and prior experiences to expand their schema." -Douglas Fisher & Nancy Frey

Woah!

Let's simplify.

What is close reading?
Close reading is a strategy in which children read and reread short, complex texts to improve comprehension.
Even simpler?
Close reading is reading a text enough times that you can explain it to someone else and answer questions about it.
What's the point of close reading?

Students will not always have a parent or teacher alongside them when tackling a tough text. Close reading gives them the tools to read complex texts all on their own.

What's the procedure for close reading?

You'll find a different set of steps everywhere you look! I find the following procedure a good starting point for children in grades 3-6.

Tips for teaching close reading

Model first!

Make sure the text is above your students' regular reading level, but not so much that every sentence is difficult.

Don't give your students a lot of background knowledge before they read. Set a purpose for reading, and leave it at that.

Make sure your students have a chance to mark up the text with a highlighter and pencil. If they may not write on the text, provide small sticky notes.

Ask questions whose answers your students can find within the text.

Incorporate discussion. Pause after each step for students to talk to a partner or small group.

Be patient. Close reading isn't easy! It takes a lot of practice to think critically about a text.

Don't overdo it! Students need many opportunities to practice close reading, but if you do it too often you'll wear them out.

Close reading is far from a simple task, but don't be afraid to try it! Today I'm sharing a set of free close reading bookmarks and a close reading lesson to give you the confidence you need.

How to teach a close reading lesson
1. Choose your text.
My daughter is a strong fourth grade reader, so I knew I'd need to look above her grade level to find a text that would challenge her. We used an interesting factsheet from the free Hungry Pests Invade Middle School curriculum. This curriculum is designed to raise awareness about 19 invasive species that destroy trees and plants, threaten our food supply, and more.

The United States Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has provided this standards-based curriculum for teachers of grades 6-8, but you'll find that you can modify many of the activities for younger grades.
2. Gather your materials.
I printed the factsheet and trimmed its edges before I glued it to a sheet of yellow legal paper, since it's helpful for kids to have a border on which to write annotations. I also grabbed a highlighter, pencil, and close reading bookmark.

With our materials in front of us, I explained what we were going to do.
3. Explain the purpose of close reading.
"Do you know how some things are easy to read, and other things aren't? Sometimes you have to read something quite a few times to understand it. I feel that way when I'm reading something technical about blogging, or when I'm doing research about how to be a better teacher. As you get older, you'll be doing research for reports and find that some of the text is hard for you to understand. Today I'm going to teach you a strategy that will help you with those harder texts. It's called close reading. We're going to read the same text a few different times and do something different each time."

I read aloud the first section of the factsheet from the Hungry Pests curriculum as a fourth grader might do it. As I read, I talked aloud about marks that I made.

"The United States is under attack from alien invaders, but they're not from outer space. (That's funny! I'm going to put a heart here because I like this part.)... They are causing or are likely to cause harm to the economy, the environment, or human health. (I can't remember what the economy is. I'm going to circle that word.)... Some pests, such as the imported fire ant, threaten plant, animal, and human health. (Oh, I know about fire ants! I'll put a 'C' there because I can make a connection.) "
4. Model.
And so on.

After I read, I stated the point of the article.

I read it a second time, for a different purpose.
"It sounds like certain bugs and weeds cost our country a lot of money when they get to the wrong places."
I read the piece a second time.
"I'm going to read this part again. That will help me understand it a little better. I'll mark anything else I notice and think about why the author wrote this article." "It sounds like invasive species are a really big problem for country. The author is writing about it because he wants us to know about the problem. I think that the rest of the article might tell how we can prevent it."
I told my daughter to read the next section, and I showed her what annotations she might make using her close reading bookmark as a guide.

"Now it's your turn! I want you to read this next section. It's okay if you don't know for sure what's important. Just highlight or star what you think are the important parts. Circle words you don't know or parts that are confusing. Write a '?' if you have a question, a '!' if you're surprised, a heart if you like something, and a 'C' if it reminds you of something."
4. Give your students a chance to try it.
Since this was my daughter's first time doing a close read exercise, she needed a lot of support and reminders. She read without making any annotations at first; I reminded her to back up and highlight the important parts.

After she read the first time, we talked about the marks she made and why. Then, I told her to read the section another time.
5. Support as needed.
In a classroom, I'd have students meet in pairs to talk after each reading. Since it was just my daughter and I, we talked together after each reading.
"It's time to read this a second time. Imagine that you're reading with a magnifying glass. You're trying to learn even more than you learned the first time. As you read, feel free to make more marks. I also want you to think about why the author wrote this."
"So that we know that invasive pests are a big problem and so we do something about it."
6. Provide opportunities for discussion. "Why do you think the author wrote this?"
We continued the procedure through several sections of text. After studying the section How do They Get Here? I asked, "How do Hungry Pests travel?"

She reread the text to herself and answered, "They get here on accident. They come in the mail. They can travel on flowers and timber."

After studying What you can do to fight these invaders? I asked, "How can you - a fourth grader - fight the invasion of Hungry Pests?"

"I can report when I see Hungry Pests. I can make sure we don't move firewood when we go camping. I can make sure I don't walk through infested areas.
7. Make sure you ask text-dependent questions after the second reading.
"I guess I'd have to learn what they look like."

After our intense reading session, I asked, "What did you learn today?"
"And how can you know when you see Hungry Pests or infested areas?"
With some prompting she answered, "Hungry Pests cause a lot of damage. We should try to stop them from spreading."

And now you're ready to try a close reading lesson!
"That's true! I have some pictures of Hungry Pests that come with this curriculum. We can look at those later."
*Fisher, Douglas & Frey, Nancy. (2012). Close Reading in Elementary Schools. The Reading Teacher, Volume 66. p. 179-188.
8. Finish by having your students paraphrase the text.
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Close reading is one of those big buzz words in literacy education. But what is close reading, anyway? This post will tell you exactly what it is, plus how to teach it! Have you heard the term

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Our library provides effective, research-based classroom strategies to help strengthen your students' skills in phonological awareness, decoding, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing.

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The Reading & Writing Project Resource CenterUsing running record data for planning instruction

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The Reading & Writing Project Resource CenterUsing running record data for planning instruction

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https://learningattheprimarypond.com/blog/reading-and-analyzing-nonfiction-strategy-ran/

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Diagnostic
Formative/ Informal
Summative

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1. Meaning Making

Interacting with text, producing text, engaging in research, participating in discussions, and giving presentations.

2. Language Development

Read, write, speak, and listen as students interact with one another and learn about language.

3. Effective Expression

Students learn how to effectively express themselves as writers, discuss with partners, and present while gaining command over the conventions of written and spoken English.

4. Content Knowledge

Contributes to students' comprehension of text and undergirds the ability to produce different types of writing. It also contributes significantly to language development and is fundamental to learning about how the English language works.

5. Foundational Skills

Enable students to independently read and use written language for multiple purposes. Students who can decode are best positioned to make significant strides in the four key themes of meaning making, language development, effective expression, and content knowledge.

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Darien District #61 K - 8 Reading Instruction Model

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Darien District #61 K - 8 Reading Instruction Model

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Screenshot picture and add as main image

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A version of the reading-instruction workbook is here: https://github.com/cboosalis/RICA For Educational Purposes Only - Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/user/chrisboosalis/playlists Consult a variety of sources as you prepare for your test - no guarantee of success accompanies your viewing/reading experience. No ads should appear along side or within the videos.

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Inspire young readers with strategies that help them define text types, examine how text structure affects meaning, and identify audience and purpose.

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Showing 1 - 10 of 50 Free Children's Books

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Free Children's Books | Free Children's Books Pdf Online | Monkey Pen

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Enjoy reading interesting and beautiful collections of free children's books online and nurture quality reading habit with the free children's books by downloading free children's books pdf

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Zarrillo, J. J. (2016). Ready for RICA: A test preparation guide for California's Reading Instruction Competence Assessment 4th edition. Pearson.

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Simulations for physics, chemistry, math, earth science, and biology subjects.

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Over 1.1 billion simulations delivered

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Founded in 2002 by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman, the PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado Boulder creates free interactive math and science simulations. PhET sims are based on extensive education research and engage students through an intuitive, game-like environment where students learn through exploration and discovery.

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Founded in 2002 by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman, the PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado Boulder creates free interactive math and science simulations. PhET sims are based on extensive education research and engage students through an intuitive, game-like environment where students learn through exploration and discovery.

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Created and maintained by the American Federation of Teachers, Share My Lesson is a community of teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel, specialized instructional support personnel, higher education faculty, and parents and caregivers who contribute content, collaborate, and stay up to date on the issues that matter to students and educators everywhere.

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Share My Lesson is a community of teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel, specialized instructional support personnel, higher education faculty, and parents and caregivers who contribute content, collaborate, and stay up to date on the issues that matter to students and educators everywhere.

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Learning to speak Spanish? Check out our free Spanish lessons and our children's stories in Spanish (Good for adults too!) We've also got reviews of Spanish courses if you're ready to get serious. Enjoy!

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Spanish Children's Stories & Free Spanish Lessons: The Spanish Experiment

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Tools for learning Spanish online. Children's stories translated into Spanish, free Spanish lessons, and course reviews. Great for beginner to intermediate learners.

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Reading, math and more for kindergarten to grade 5. Thousands of free worksheets in math, reading, science, vocabulary, spelling, grammar and writing.

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Short A Vowel Sound
With these files, your students will practice reading and writing words with the short a vowel sounds. Printables include word and picture sorts, a phonics card game, cut-and-glue activities, reading sliders, and more.
Long A Vowel Sound
All of the printable activities in this unit features words that have the long a vowel sound. There are word wheels, card games, cut-and-paste activities, coloring worksheets, and much more.
Short A & Long A (Mixed)
The worksheets on this page have words with both the short a and long a vowel sounds. These printable games and worksheets require students to sort or differentiate between the two sounds.
Short E Vowel Sound
Help students write and read words with the short e vowel sound. This page has tracing worksheets, reading spinners, paste-and-cut projects, and puzzles.
Long E Vowel Sound
Our long e page has a variety of learning center activities, cutting and gluing activities, as well as word sorts.
Short E & Long E (Mixed)
This page has a collection of printable worksheets and games featuring words with short-E and long-E vowel sounds.
Short I Vowel Sound
Focus on the short I vowel sound with these printable phonics worksheets.
Long I Vowel Sound
These printable phonics worksheets feature words that have a long-I vowel sound. There are cut-and-glue activities, word wheels, word sliders, and more.
Short I & Long I (Mixed)
The worksheets on this page have words with both the long I and short I vowel sounds. These printables require your students to sort between the two sounds.
Short O Vowel Sound
This set of phonics worksheets teaches students about the short O sound.
Long O Vowel Sound
This collection of printable phonics worksheets highlight words that have a long-O vowel sound.
Short O & Long O (Mixed)
Differentiate between words with the long-O vowel sound and those with a short-O vowel sound with this selection of phonics worksheets.
Short U Vowel Sound
The short U vowel sound is the focus of these printable mini-books, games, and worksheets.
Long U Vowel Sound
These printable worksheets are designed to have students read and learn about words that have a long-U sound.
Short U & Long U (Mixed)
Students can explore the differences between the long-U and short-U vowel sounds in words.
Consonant B b
Worksheets, mini-books, and games that focus on the consonant letter b.
Consonant C c
Printable games, worksheets, and mini-books that focus on the consonant letter c.
Consonant D d
Print these worksheets that focus on the consonant letter d.
Consonant F f
Worksheets to help students learn the letter f.
Consonant G g
With these worksheets, students will learn the sounds made by the letter g.
Consonant H h
Worksheets, mini-books, and printable games that focus on the letter h.
Consonant J j
Complete set of worksheets for the consonant letter j.
Consonant K k
Materials for teaching students about the sound made by the letter k.
Consonant L l
Learn about the consonant letter l with these printable worksheets.
Consonant M m
Worksheets, printable mini-books, and card games for the consonant letter m.
Consonant N n
Print worksheets, games, mini-books, and activities for the letter n.
Consonant P p
Practice the sound made by the letter p with these printable classroom activities.
Consonant Q q
Master the sound made by the letters qu with these worksheets.
Consonant R r
Printable worksheets, mini-books, and games for the letter r.
Consonant S s
The consonant letter s is the focus of this phonics worksheet set.
Consonant T t
Mini-books, worksheets, and more on this letter t page.
Consonant V v
Worksheets for teaching students about the letter v.
Consonant W w
Word sorts, cut-and-glue activities, and printables for teaching the /w/ sound.
Consonant X x
Here are several activities for learning the /x/ sound.
Consonant Y y
Yes, you can learn to read about yo-yos, yaks, yolks, and yarn with the /y/ worksheets.
Consonant Z z
Use these worksheets and games to practice reading words with the /z/ sound.

Practice the /ch/ sound with these worksheets and activities.

Learn to say and read the /sh/ sound with these printable worksheets and activities.

Learn the two different ways to read and say /th/ with this collection of printables.

Practice reading words with the /wh/ sound.
Digraphs: Ch- and Sh- (Mixed)
These worksheets will help your students learn to differentiate between the /ch/ and /sh/ sounds and spellings.
Blend Family: L-Family Blends
This phonics unit has many printable worksheets featuring words with the L-family blend such as: bl-, cl-, fl-, gl-, pl-, and sl-.
Blend Family: R-Family Blends
Printable worksheets for teaching students to read and write basic words that begin with the letters br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, and tr.

Read and write words with the /bl/ sound.

Use these printable activities to help teach students about the BR consonant blend.

Use the printable activities on this page to help students practice the CL consonant blend.

These printable activities can be used to help teach students about the CR consonant blend.

A wide-selection of worksheets and activities for students to learn about the DR consonant blend.

This unit contains words that have start with the /fl/ sound. Words include: flamingo, flashcards, Florida, floss, flute, fly, flag, flame, and flower.

Use these worksheets to help teach students to read words with the /fr/ sound.

Print out the phonics worksheets and activities on this page so your students can learn about words with the GL consonant blend.

Use these printable phonics worksheets and activities to help students learn words with a /pr/ sound. Includes the words: grapes, grass, green, and grill.

Students will use this wide array of worksheets and activities to help learn about words with the /pl/ sound.

This unit is devoted to words with the PR consonant blend. You will find many different worksheets and activities for students to practice reading, writing, and identifying their PR words.

Teach your students about words with the SC consonant blend with this phonics unit. Words in this unit include: scout, scare, scope, scoot, scarecrow, scarf, and scoop.

When teaching your students about the SK consonant blend, you will find all kinds of printables, such as: a word wheel, cut-and-glue activities, writing activities, flashcards, and more!

Use sentences, activities and mini-books to help deliver the SL sound.

Try reading and writing words with the /sn/ sound.

Check out the wide selection of printable games, activities, and worksheets featuring words with the SP consonant blend (ex: spin, spy, spell, spring, and space.

Teach students to read words with the /st/ sound.

This unit highlighting SW words has all kinds of printable worksheets including a word search puzzle, word slider, word wheel, flashcards, cut-and-glue activities, and more!

Teach students about the TR consonant blend with these printable activities, puzzles, and worksheets.

Practice reading and writing words with the /str/ sound.
r-Controlled Vowels: AR
Printable worksheets with feature words with the r-controlled vowel sound made by the letters -ar. Sometimes teachers informally referred to r-controlled vowel sounds as "Bossy R" sounds.

Learn about the /oy/ vowel sound with these printables. Includes flashcards, word sliders, stampers, and sentence completion activities.

Learn about /ow/ spelled with ou and ow.

Learn about the long e sound spelled with the digraphs ee and ea.

Learn about the short and long oo sounds with these phonics worksheets.

The worksheets on this page have words with the consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) pattern.

Print activities for teaching words with the consonant-vowel-vowel-consonant pattern.
CVCe (Silent e) Words
This page has several different types of activities for learning about Silent E (CVCe) words.
Initial Consonants
These worksheets and games can be used to help students recognize beginning consonant sounds in words.
Ending Consonants
On these worksheets, students determine which consonant sounds are at the end of each word.
Word Families Word Wheels (Word Families)
Practice reading word family sets with these word wheels.
Sight Word Units
We have 30 weeks of sight word units. Each unit highlights five words for kids to learn and includes a variety of sight word games, worksheets, and learning center activities.
Sight Words (Individual)
Download printable worksheets for over 200 individual sight words. Each word has about nine worksheets.
Dolch Sight Words
Sight word bingo, word wheels, and flashcards.
Fry Instant Sight Words
Use these tools to help your students master the Fry Instant Word lists.
Alphabet Crowns
Print letter and number hats that your students can color and wear in school. Each hat features a letter (or number) of the day, with pictures.
Phonics Mini-Books
Print these tiny 8-page mini-books for each consonant and vowel sound.
Word Ladders
To complete these phonics puzzles, students change letters in the given words to build new words. (Level: Very Basic)
Phonics for Older Students (General)
Phonics vowel sounds, blends, and diphthongs for upper-elementary students.
Phonics for Older Students: Long and Short Vowel Sounds
Recognize long and short vowel sounds in words.
Reading & Writing Worksheets - Full List
Printable worksheets to help students learn long and short vowel sounds.

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Short A Vowel Sound With these files, your students will practice reading and writing words with the short a vowel sounds. Printables include word and picture sorts, a phonics card game, cut-and-glue activities, reading sliders, and more. Long A Vowel Sound All of the printable activities in this unit features words that have the long a vowel sound.

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Video lessons made in partnership with the National Science Teachers Association that engage, educate & inspire kids in science. Generation Genius videos are 12-minutes long and include lesson plans, teacher guides, DIY activities and stopping points for class discussion.

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SBE-Adopted ELA/ELD Framework - ELA/ELD Framework (CA Dept of Education)

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The State Board of Education adopted the English Language Arts/English Language Development (ELA/ELD) Framework at its July 9, 2014, meeting. This is the final, edited digital version of the ELA/ELD Framework, published July 2015.

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Standards for Mathematical Practice

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California Common Core State Standards for Mathematics
Standards for Mathematical Practice

The Standards for Mathematical Practice describe varieties of expertise that mathematics educators at all levels should seek to develop in their students. These practices rest on important "processes and proficiencies" with longstanding importance in mathematics education. The first of these are the NCTM process standards of problem solving, reasoning and proof, communication, representation, and connections. The second are the strands of mathematical proficiency specified in the National Research Council's report Adding It Up: adaptive reasoning, strategic competence, conceptual understanding (comprehension of mathematical concepts, operations and relations), procedural fluency (skill in carrying out procedures flexibly, accurately, efficiently and appropriately), and productive disposition (habitual inclination to see mathematics as sensible, useful, and worthwhile, coupled with a belief in diligence and one's own efficacy).

1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
Mathematically proficient students start by explaining to themselves the meaning of a problem and looking for entry points to its solution. They analyze givens, constraints, relationships, and goals. They make conjectures about the form and meaning of the solution and plan a solution pathway rather than simply jumping into a solution attempt. They consider analogous problems, and try special cases and simpler forms of the original problem in order to gain insight into its solution. They monitor and evaluate their progress and change course if necessary. Older students might, depending on the context of the problem, transform algebraic expressions or change the viewing window on their graphing calculator to get the information they need. Mathematically proficient students can explain correspondences between equations, verbal descriptions, tables, and graphs or draw diagrams of important features and relationships, graph data, and search for regularity or trends. Younger students might rely on using concrete objects or pictures to help conceptualize and solve a problem. Mathematically proficient students check their answers to problems using a different method, and they continually ask themselves, "Does this make sense?" They can understand the approaches of others to solving complex problems and identify correspondences between different approaches.

2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
Mathematically proficient students make sense of quantities and their relationships in problem situations. They bring two complementary abilities to bear on problems involving quantitative relationships: the ability to decontextualize-to abstract a given situation and represent it symbolically and manipulate the representing symbols as if they have a life of their own, without necessarily attending to their referents-and the ability to contextualize, to pause as needed during the manipulation process in order to probe into the referents for the symbols involved. Quantitative reasoning entails habits of creating a coherent representation of the problem at hand; considering the units involved; attending to the meaning of quantities, not just how to compute them; and knowing and flexibly using different properties of operations and objects.

3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
Mathematically proficient students understand and use stated assumptions, definitions, and previously established results in constructing arguments. They make conjectures and build a logical progression of statements to explore the truth of their conjectures. They are able to analyze situations by breaking them into cases, and can recognize and use counterexamples. They justify their conclusions, communicate them to others, and respond to the arguments of others. They reason inductively about data, making plausible arguments that take into account the context from which the data arose. Mathematically proficient students are also able to compare the effectiveness of two plausible arguments, distinguish correct logic or reasoning from that which is flawed, and-if there is a flaw in an argument-explain what it is. Elementary students can construct arguments using concrete referents such as objects, drawings, diagrams, and actions. Such arguments can make sense and be correct, even though they are not generalized or made formal until later grades. Later, students learn to determine domains to which an argument applies. Students at all grades can listen to or read the arguments of others, decide whether they make sense, and ask useful questions to clarify or improve the arguments.Students build proofs by induction and proofs by contradiction. CA 3.1 (for higher mathematics only).

4. Model with mathematics.
Mathematically proficient students can apply the mathematics they know to solve problems arising in everyday life, society, and the workplace. In early grades, this might be as simple as writing an addition equation to describe a situation. In middle grades, a student might apply proportional reasoning to plan a school event or analyze a problem in the community. By high school, a student might use geometry to solve a design problem or use a function to describe how one quantity of interest depends on another. Mathematically proficient students who can apply what they know are comfortable making assumptions and approximations to simplify a complicated situation, realizing that these may need revision later. They are able to identify important quantities in a practical situation and map their relationships using such tools as diagrams, two-way tables, graphs, flowcharts and formulas. They can analyze those relationships mathematically to draw conclusions. They routinely interpret their mathematical results in the context of the situation and reflect on whether the results make sense, possibly improving the model if it has not served its purpose.

5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
Mathematically proficient students consider the available tools when solving a mathematical problem. These tools might include pencil and paper, concrete models, a ruler, a protractor, a calculator, a spreadsheet, a computer algebra system, a statistical package, or dynamic geometry software. Proficient students are sufficiently familiar with tools appropriate for their grade or course to make sound decisions about when each of these tools might be helpful, recognizing both the insight to be gained and their limitations. For example, mathematically proficient high school students analyze graphs of functions and solutions generated using a graphing calculator. They detect possible errors by strategically using estimation and other mathematical knowledge. When making mathematical models, they know that technology can enable them to visualize the results of varying assumptions, explore consequences, and compare predictions with data. Mathematically proficient students at various grade levels are able to identify relevant external mathematical resources, such as digital content located on a website, and use them to pose or solve problems. They are able to use technological tools to explore and deepen their understanding of concepts.

6. Attend to precision.
Mathematically proficient students try to communicate precisely to others. They try to use clear definitions in discussion with others and in their own reasoning. They state the meaning of the symbols they choose, including using the equal sign consistently and appropriately. They are careful about specifying units of measure, and labeling axes to clarify the correspondence with quantities in a problem. They calculate accurately and efficiently, express numerical answers with a degree of precision appropriate for the problem context. In the elementary grades, students give carefully formulated explanations to each other. By the time they reach high school they have learned to examine claims and make explicit use of definitions.

7. Look for and make use of structure.
Mathematically proficient students look closely to discern a pattern or structure. Young students, for example, might notice that three and seven more is the same amount as seven and three more, or they may sort a collection of shapes according to how many sides the shapes have. Later, students will see 7 × 8 equals the well-remembered 7 × 5 + 7 × 3, in preparation for learning about the distributive property. In the expression x^2 + 9x + 14, older students can see the 14 as 2 × 7 and the 9 as 2 + 7. They recognize the significance of an existing line in a geometric figure and can use the strategy of drawing an auxiliary line for solving problems. They also can step back for an overview and shift perspective. They can see complicated things, such as some algebraic expressions, as single objects or as being composed of several objects. For example, they can see 5 - 3(x - y)^2 as 5 minus a positive number times a square and use that to realize that its value cannot be more than 5 for any real numbers x and y.

8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
Mathematically proficient students notice if calculations are repeated, and look both for general methods and for shortcuts. Upper elementary students might notice when dividing 25 by 11 that they are repeating the same calculations over and over again, and conclude they have a repeating decimal. By paying attention to the calculation of slope as they repeatedly check whether points are on the line through (1, 2) with slope 3, middle school students might abstract the equation (y - 2)/(x - 1) = 3. Noticing the regularity in the way terms cancel when expanding (x - 1)(x + 1), (x - 1)(x^2 + x + 1), and (x - 1)(x^3 + x^2 + x + 1) might lead them to the general formula for the sum of a geometric series. As they work to solve a problem, mathematically proficient students maintain oversight of the process, while attending to the details. They continually evaluate the reasonableness of their intermediate results.

Connecting the Standards for Mathematical Practice to the Standards for Mathematical Content

The Standards for Mathematical Practice describe ways in which developing student practitioners of the discipline of mathematics increasingly ought to engage with the subject matter as they grow in mathematical maturity and expertise throughout the elementary, middle and high school years. Designers of curricula, assessments, and professional development should all attend to the need to connect the mathematical practices to mathematical content in mathematics instruction.

The Standards for Mathematical Content are a balanced combination of procedure and understanding. Expectations that begin with the word "understand" are often especially good opportunities to connect the practices to the content. Students who lack understanding of a topic may rely on procedures too heavily. Without a flexible base from which to work, they may be less likely to consider analogous problems, represent problems coherently, justify conclusions, apply the mathematics to practical situations, use technology mindfully to work with the mathematics, explain the mathematics accurately to other students, step back for an overview, or deviate from a known procedure to find a shortcut. In short, a lack of understanding effectively prevents a student from engaging in the mathematical practices.

In this respect, those content standards which set an expectation of understanding are potential "points of intersection" between the Standards for Mathematical Content and the Standards for Mathematical Practice. These points of intersection are intended to be weighted toward central and generative concepts in the school mathematics curriculum that most merit the time, resources, innovative energies, and focus necessary to qualitatively improve the curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional development, and student achievement in mathematics.

Questions: Curriculum Framework and Instructional Resources Division | CFIRD@cde.ca.gov | 916-319-0881

Last Reviewed: Tuesday, July 25, 2023

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The Standards for Mathematical Practice describe varieties of expertise that mathematics educators at all levels should seek to develop in their students.

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CA Content Standards (CA Dept of Education)

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Next Generation Science Standards K-5

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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.

Reenvisioning the UDL Guidelines

Because the UDL Guidelines are meant to be informed by feedback from the field as well as new research, they have been updated several times in the past. We are in the process of updating the Guidelines once again in our UDL Rising to Equity initiative.

This update will focus specifically on addressing systemic barriers that result in inequitable learning opportunities and outcomes. CAST aims to develop a transparent, inclusive, and community-driven process. If you are interested in collaborating and staying updated on our progress, we invite you to complete a brief survey.

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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.

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Committed to providing leadership, assistance, and resources so that every student has access to an education that meets world-class standards, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the California Department of Education (CDE) and the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE) proudly announce the Common Core Translation Project. Standards-based instruction is at the forefront of education reform because it presents a framework to ensure that all students are exposed to rigorous content and prepared to contribute positively to an increasingly complex world.

As we prepare to build capacity to implement the new California Common Core Standards (CCCS) stakeholders have identified the need for the translation and linguistic augmentation of the California Common Core ELA/Literacy Standards and Math Standards to Spanish. This translated and linguistically augmented version of the CCSS is important because it establishes a guide for equitable assessment and curriculum development.

In exemplary service to districts, communities and our students, an electronic version of the California Common Core Standards en Español is posted on this website for free public access and is available to individuals in California and across the country.

At this time, the First Edition Finals for grades K-12 are available online:

Go to CCCSS en Español tab for the Common Core State Standards Spanish Version

Go to CaCCSS en Español tab for the California standards in English/Spanish format.

The CCSSO and the CDE are involved only in granting permission to translate the standards into Spanish. The CCSSO and the CDE are not involved in any other component or development of the Common Core en Español website. The content of this website is managed by the San Diego County Office of Education.

Please contact us with your suggestions, questions or concerns.

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home - San Diego County Office of Education

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home - SDCOE serves our county's most vulnerable students and supports school leaders, teachers, and students across the county.

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This month, EdSource published a Q&A with 2nd-grade teacher Gabriela Orozco Gonzalez, who shares Common Core tips and insights from her classroom. Gonzalez mostly teaches students who, like her, came to school speaking a language other than English. She is especially focused on strategies to enhance their literacy skills.

Also, we're highlighting an effort in Tulare County to improve 5th-grade math achievement in a network of schools using "improvement science" principles. And, we've compiled resources for educators to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.

One burning question for many 5th-grade teachers in Tulare County districts is: Can they triple students' math proficiency on standardized test scores in four years ?

"It's a lofty goal, considering the state average," said Shelah Feldstein, a Tulare County Office of Education math staff development and curriculum specialist who is helping to spearhead a project that aims to improve 5 th-grade math achievement in a network of area schools and districts.

The Central Valley Networked Improvement Communities, known as CVNIC, include 1,091 students and 41 teachers across 15 schools in eight school districts: Burton School District in Porterville, the Cutler-Orosi Joint School District in Orosi, Dinuba Unified, Exeter Unified, Tulare City School District, Visalia Unified, and the Sycamore Valley Academy charter school and Valley Life Charter Schools in Visalia.

September kicks off National Hispanic Heritage Month
July, 2017
Theresa Harrington and Erin Brownfield

Teens, you'll want to wake up for this: Later school start time bill moves forward

A ban on starting regular school classes earlier than in all California middle and high schoolswill come up for a vote next month in an Assembly committee.

The bill passed the Assembly Education Committee last week and must clear the Assembly Appropriations Committee before it goes to the full Assembly. If passed and signed by the governor, the bill would make California the first state in the country to adopt a ban on early start times in secondary schools.

In May, the Senate approved the bill in a 23-13 vote. If passed, the bill wouldn't go into effect for two years, to give schools and districts time to plan for it. Small, rural districts could apply for waivers for up to two years, if the new law would pose a hardship for them.

The bill is supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics, California State PTA, American Academy of Sleep Medicine, California Federation of Teachers, California Sleep Society and several hospitals, school districts and student advocacy groups.

Summer science, math and reading resources

To help prevent summer learning loss, many organizations such as the nonprofit Project Lead the Way, California Mathematics Council and Storyline Online offer fun activities and resources.

Click here for resources in math, science and reading that could be useful for parents and children during summer break - or even during the school year.

Students can lose the equivalent of up to two months of grade-level math and science skills over the summer if they don't keep their brains active, according to Project Lead the Way.

State Board of Education approves English Learner Roadmap

To help California's more than 1.3 million English learners navigate through the public school system, the State Board of Education has approved an "English Learner Roadmap."

The Roadmap is the first new language policy adopted in nearly two decades to serve the one in four public school students throughout the state who are classified as English learners. It is expected to help schools in the more than 1,000 districts statewide to meet updated state and federal education requirements and laws.

Approved last week, the Roadmap aims to help English learner students and their parents know what courses, programs and services are available to them. It was created partially in response to the passage of Proposition 58 last year, which eliminated some legal barriers to bilingual education.

Now that students have finished the third year of Common Core-aligned standardized tests in math and English language arts, a Public Policy Institute of California report warns that results from the first two years show low-income students and English learners are falling further behind their English-fluent, wealthier peers.

Theresa Harrington and Erin Brownfield

What can U.S. schools learn from top education systems in other countries?

To prepare students for an increasingly interconnected and global society, many countries have revamped their education systems to provide students with a 21st century education that has produced higher achievement and greater equity than U.S. schools, a new study has found.

The study of teaching quality in the world's top-performing education systems reveals that one of the most important strategies to achieve these results is developing policies to ensure that every student receives high-quality teaching.

Called "Empowered Educators," the three-year study was led by education researcher Linda Darling-Hammond of the Learning Policy Institute, along with an international team of education researchers, with the support of the Center on International Benchmarking at the National Center on Education and the Economy, or NCEE. It investigated the states of New South Wales and Victoria in Australia, the provinces of Alberta and Ontario in Canada, the province of Shanghai in China, and the countries Singapore and Finland.

The school year may be over, but since June is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer/Questioning Pride Month in honor of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City, it's an appropriate time for a roundup of resources for schools and classrooms. According to the Anti-Defamation League, LGBTQ history "is American history and should be integrated into the curriculum throughout the school year."

The Anti-Defamation League offers a set of curricula, recommended books and other resources on topics such as marriage equality, LGBTQ history, transgender students, bullying and hate-crime prevention available at no cost at this link. Resources include standards-based downloadable lesson plans organized by grade level.

The nonprofit LGBTQ education advocacy group GLSEN, which has chapters in Los Angeles and San Diego, offers many resources for teachers and students, including lesson plans, book recommendations, a toolkit, a blog with frequent posts about LGBTQ students and school supports for them and a research-focused Twitter feed.

Facing History and Ourselves, an international education and professional development nonprofit, has an extensive selection of training and curricular resources on bullying and ostracism, many related to LGBTQ and gender identity issues.

Three organizations (Advocates for Youth, Answer at Rutgers University, and Youth Tech Health) recently launched an initiative called AMAZE that provides animated YouTube videos geared to 10-14 year olds on topics such as gender expression, sexual orientation, and gender identity. The project also provides educators with tips, conversation starters and other resources at this link.

The Human Rights Campaign's Welcoming Schools Initiative also offers a wealth of resources such as lesson plans and staff training materials. Particularly helpful are their "Answering Challenging Questions" and "LGBTQ Definitions" sections for adults and children.

STANDARDS IN THE NEWS
More than 200 titles added to state's recommended literature list
The California Department of Education has added 285 award-winning titles to its Recommended Literature: Prekindergarten Through Grade Twelve list, which includes more than 8,000 titles of recommended reading for children and teens.

The online list includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama. The recent additions include multilingual authors and increase the stories available about diverse people and lifestyles.

Literature in the interactive database may be searched by author, title, annotation, illustrator, translator, subject, grade level or language. Go here for more information and to access the list.

Three briefs examine how teachers in Seattle, Denver, Boston, New Orleans, Tampa and Raleigh obtain, assess the quality of, choose and supplement instructional materials:

Instructional improvement, immigration rights and equity

As high school math teachers in California strive to improve student achievement, they may be interested to hear about a network of educators studying ways to make math more interesting. Kirk Walters, a former math teacher from San Bernardino High who is now a researcher with the American Institutes for Research, talked to EdSource about how California teachers could set up their own networks to try out new instructional strategies and share what worked and what didn't. Three keys to engage students, he said, are: teacher excitement and curiosity about their subject matter, exploring underlying concepts and pushing students to explain their answers, and presenting teens with novel problems where the answers aren't immediately apparent.

Also this month, education leader Carl Cohn said fears about immigration rights and the possibility of deportation among families with undocumented members heighten the need for

schools to provide safe spaces for students and to consider offering services such as counseling or other resources.

And, a new report prepared by a team of researchers who are members of a Local Control Funding Formula Research Collaborative shows some districts aren't spending their targeted Local Control funding in ways that will specifically help low-income students, foster youth and English learners.

Have you listened to " This Week in California Education," EdSource's new podcast yet? We are adding new features and voices every week to give you more insight into our stories, so subscribe through iTunes or Stitcher and let us know what you think.

Thanks for reading!

Theresa Harrington and Erin Brownfield

USEFUL PICKS FROM OTHER SOURCES

The percentage of low-income students and English Learners meeting the standards increased, but these increases were not at fast enough rates to close substantial achievement gaps with higher income students who are fluent in English.

Fewer students in districts where more than 55 percent of students are from low income families or are English Learners met the standards on the state tests. About 33 percent of students met the standards in those districts, compared to about 60 percent for districts with fewer high-need students.

Most districts saw similar growth regardless of their percentages of disadvantaged students. But districts where students scored low and did not show significant growth in scores from one year to the next tended to have higher percentages of high-need students. These results were considered "especially troubling because they indicate that disadvantaged students are falling further behind."

Read the entire report here.
May is National Foster Care Awareness Month
With passage of the Local Control Funding Formula, California became the first state to require schools to consider how best to serve a small subset of at-risk students: youth in foster care.According to 2016 California Department of Education data, in English language arts, 56.2 percent of foster students did not meet standards on the Smarter Balanced tests (compared to 30.5 percent of non-foster students) and for mathematics, 64 percent of foster students did not meet standards (compared to 37.3 percent of non-foster students).

The following resources provide more information about the state's nearly 70,000 foster youth, as well as some strategies for schools and districts:

In 2016, The CDE released accountability data on how foster youth performed in the 2014-15 school year. You can search for data broken down by school, district or county on Data Quest at this link. Select "foster" under the Subject pulldown menu.

The National Center for Youth Law has released a report on how foster youth are faring under local control, which is available at this link. The report includes promising and innovative examples of district approaches to including foster youth in LCAPs.

The Alliance for Children's Rights has created a helpful guide to improving education outcomes for California children in foster care. Updated in late 2016, the Foster Youth Education Toolkit includes step-by-step procedures and implementation tools to help districts engage in best practices when educating foster youth.

STANDARDS IN THE NEWS
New studies suggest choice of curriculum and textbooks can make a big difference for students
Have you ever wondered if textbook choice really makes a difference? Choosing better curriculum materials can indeed lead to gains in student achievement, according to a report in the The 74. "Multiple research studies meeting the highest bar for methodological rigor find substantial learning impacts from the adoption of specific curricula. The impact on student learning can be profound," wrote Johns Hopkins University's David Steiner in a review of research. Read more
'Nature Bowl' competition connects environmental awareness and new science standards
A science teaching idea that could spread: Third- to sixth-graders from 22 schools in the Sacramento region recently competed in an annual science-based educational program, Nature Bowl XXXII. Students learned about the environment while building teamwork skills, according to the Sacramento Bee. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife coordinates the event and the program curriculum corresponds with California's Next Generation Science Standards. Read more

Thanks for reading!

Theresa Harrington and Erin Brownfield

IN OTHER NEWS
"Mathematical Mindsets" online math course for teachers
The YouCubed math center at Stanford University, formed by well-known Stanford professor and math expert Jo Boaler, is offering a new online course for math teachers beginning .

EdSource School Dashboard Database and more

The release of a new California School Dashboard - featuring ratings of schools and districts according to several accountability criteria - was big news recently.

Several EdSource stories have highlighting the pros and cons of the dashboard, as well as new "5×5 reports" that show how well schools or student subgroups are doing in specific categories.

Also, we'd like to draw your attention to our searchable EdSource California School Dashboard database, which includes comparison features not available on the state's website. Our site shows side-by-side color-coded ratings for every category currently available in schools and districts. Our database also includes a "comparison clipboard" that allows users to easily click on a school or district and paste it onto an online clipboard, then add more schools or districts to see how they stack up next to each other.

Also of note in this update is a Q & A with a USC professor about the challenges teachers face in implementing the Common Core state standards and a new online guide to the standards created by the university.

Thanks for reading!

Theresa Harrington and Erin Brownfield

Resources
New California School Dashboard
The California Department of Education and other organizations have created several resources to help educators and the public understand and navigate the new California School Dashboard, which includes data that will be used for school and district accountability purposes beginning next fall.

These resources include:

California Department of Education Communications Toolkit.

Alameda County Office of Education Dashboard website, including video and infographics.

Ed100 Dashboard explanatory blog.

EdSource searchable database with "comparisons clipboard."

EdReports Curriculum Reviews
The nonprofit organization EdReports, which reviews curriculum materials based on their alignment to Common Core standards in math and English language arts, recently released six new reports, including two for math and four for English language arts instruction. The reports include color-coded ratings that show whether or not materials are aligned to the standards. Green signifies they are aligned, yellow shows partial alignment and red designates lack of alignment. If materials are at least partially aligned, EdReports reviewers also rate the usability of the materials for students and teachers using the same color-coded system.

The new reports review:

The organization has also launched a California-specific website called the California Curriculum Collaborative, created in partnership with Pivot Learning, which also lists all Common Core curriculum materials recommended by the state Board of Education.
EdReports Seeks Curriculum Reviewers
EdReports relies on educators from across the country to review curriculum materials for its website. The nonprofit organization is currently seeking experts to serve as Content Reviewers. More details and an online application are available here.
Johns Hopkins University reviews academic programs based on research
The Center for Research and Reform in Education in the School of Education at the John Hopkins University launched a new website earlier this month to help educators and administrators evaluate K-12 math and reading programs according to requirements established in the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA. However, the U.S. Senate later voted to rescind accountability regulations under that law.

Still, anyone interested in learning about evidence-based programs may find the website, called Evidence for ESSA, useful.

It relies on the center's faculty, along with scholarly studies, to determine an academic program's effectiveness.

The website was established to function like a consumer report aimed at determining how well programs were vetted, said Robert Slavin, director of the center, in a university article.

"State chiefs, district superintendents, and principals are the primary audience -the people making decisions about programs for schoolchildren," he said. "But there are many other people - parents and teachers, for example - who could use this information to advocate for particular programs that they think would be better for their kids. And we hope they will."

Read more here.

In other news
New teacher tenure bill introduced
AB 1220, a bill that would lengthen the probationary period for new teachers, was introduced this week by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego.

Called the Teacher and Student Success Act, the bill would extend the probationary period before teachers receive tenure to three years, up from the current period of two years. According to the LA School Report, under the bill teachers who don't meet the requirements in three years could receive a fourth or fifth year to receive additional mentoring and professional development.
Common Core critics built social media 'Botnets' to skew the education debate, says report
In an article for The 74, Kevin Mahnken writes that researchers with the University of Pennsylvania's Consortium for Policy Research in Education released a report from the #commoncore project, suggesting that public animosity toward Common Core was amplified and manipulated by organized online communities using cutting-edge social media strategies. Read more

Welcome to EdSource's new Common Core update web page, which is being produced in conjunction with our updated 'Leading Change' newsletter. The newsletter now has an expanded focus: the range of new California academic standards - from the Common Core standards in English language arts and math, to the Next Generation Science Standards and the history-social science standards - as well as how schools will be held accountable for measuring their progress on them.

You can subscribe to the newsletter here. Subscribers will find the newsletter in their email inbox twice a month. Additional resources can be found at our math and science page.

We will update our website often with relevant news, interviews, events and opportunities to participate in online #EdSourceChats. You can also engage us via Twitter.

We'd also like to hear your ideas and strategies for implementing California academic standards that we can share with others in the field. And please share this link to our Common Core web page with your friends and colleagues.

Thanks for reading!

Theresa Harrington and Erin Brownfield

Common Core Standards: What educators are saying

Across the country, teachers are adapting their instructional practices to the new Common Core standards in math and English language arts. A recent report, called Listening and Learning from Teachers: A Summary of Focus Groups on the Common Core and Assessments, reveals support, concerns and insights about the standards expressed by elementary teachers in Delaware, Illinois, Utah and Wisconsin. The teachers also discussed how the standards are affecting curricula and instructional materials, testing, student achievement data and accountability.

Although California teachers were not involved in these discussions, many of the comments shared may ring true for those working to implement the standards in this state.

If you'd like to weigh in on how standards are affecting instruction in your school, please participate in our Common Core #EdSourceChat!

Physics professor defends a key feature of Common Core math

Writing for Forbes, author and physics professor Chad Orzel defends Common Core math's emphasis on explaining how students get their answers. "Forcing students to not just generate numbers but understand and explain the process they used is one of the best developments I've seen in the math my kids are learning. I hope they keep this up all the way through school, because it will make them better scientists or engineers (should they choose to go that route), and just better thinkers in general." Read more

What are states actually changing about Common Core?

According to a new analysis highlighted in an article at Education Week, though 21 states are revising the Common Core standards or have already done so, most of the changes are minor: "Nearly 70 percent of the changes that were made in either math or language arts across all grades were simply wording or format clarifications to make the standards easier for educators or the public to understand." Read more.

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Useful updates and information for education leaders... brought to you by EdSource This Common Core update web page is produced in conjunction with our 'Leading Change' newsletter, which focuses on the range of new California academic standards - from the Common Core standards in English language arts and math, to the Next Generation Science Standards and the history-social science standards - as well as how schools are held accountable...

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RICA BLOOKETS

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4. RICA Test: 1-7

5. RICA Test: 8-17

6. RICA Test 18-30

7. RICA Test 31-41

8. RICA Test 42-52

9. RICA Test 53-60

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Join a game of kahoot here. Kahoot! is a free game-based learning platform that makes it fun to learn – any subject, in any language, on any device, for all ages!

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Frequently asked questions

There are four main types of dual language programs, which mainly differ in the population:

1. Developmental, or maintenance, bilingual programs.

1. These enroll primarily students who are native speakers of the partner language.

2. Two-way (bilingual) immersion programs.

1. These enroll a balance of native English speakers and native speakers of the partner language.

3. Foreign language immersion, language immersion or one-way immersion.

1. These enroll primarily native English speakers.

4. Heritage language programs.

1. These mainly enroll students who are dominant in English but whose parents, grandparents, or other ancestors spoke the partner language.