Of course, the RtI model presupposes collaboration from all stakeholders in a school and/or district. All-too-often, this presupposition has doomed RtI at some school sites and in some districts from the get-go. Jumping into RtI and the three-tier instructional delivery model without first addressing legitimate concerns and before gaining stakeholder consensus has given a black-eye to a promising means of delivering a truly first-class education to all children. A related article, “Ten Reasons Teachers Avoid RtI Collaboration,” details the most common concerns regarding RtI and its collaborative model. Following is an anonymous survey, using these ten reasons, to be administered at the opening exploration of RtI implementation to gauge RtI readiness of a teaching staff and its administration.

How Would You Rate Your Educational Modus Operandi (M.O.) on this 1-5 Likert Scale?

1. Autonomous (I basically do my own thing)-Collaborative (I plan and implement instruction according to grade-level team or department consensus)
2. Not Confident of Abilities (I either don’t have the requisite skills set or knowledge that my colleagues seem to have)-Confident of Abilities (I more than hold my own compared to my colleagues)
3. Job Insecurity (I am often worried about retaining my job)-Job Security (I never worry about retaining my job)
4. Castle-keeper (I am very protective about maintaining my program)-Open House (I am open to changing my program or courses I teach)
5. Content focused (I exclusively teach grade-level standards and content)-Process/Skills focused (I focus instruction on process objectives and skills acquisition)
6. Concerned about Standardized Test Results (I am often worried about the results of my students’ standardized test scores)-Unconcerned about Standardized Test Results (I am never worried about the results of my students’ standardized test scores)
7. Lazy, Burned-out, or Checked-out (I often feel this way)-Motivated (I am extremely motivated to improve the quality of my instruction)
8. Anti-Change (I am resistant to trying new instructional approaches)-Pro Change (I am ready to try new instructional approaches)
9. Adverse to Differentiated Instruction (I do not differentiate, adjust, or individualize instruction)-In favor of Differentiated Instruction (I want to differentiate, adjust, or individualize instruction)
10. Has No Support or Curricular Resources to Differentiate Instruction (I do not have the support, time, or curricular resources to modify instruction)-Has Support and Curricular Resources to Differentiate Instruction (I do have the support, time, or curricular resources to modify instruction)

The author of this article, Mark Pennington, is an MA reading specialist, middle school teacher, and author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Included in this flexible curriculum are multiple choice reading assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. In short, everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges. 364 pages

Teachers and administrators tend to be individualists, and school structures tend to reinforce this personality trait. Collaboration is simply easier for some and harder for others. Knowing why collaboration is difficult or downright threatening for individual staff members will help an RtI team address the individual concerns of its stakeholders. Dealing head-on with these stumbling blocks in the beginning stages of the RtI process will get everything “on the table” and prevent future problems during implementation.

RtI teams that avoid this necessary step and rush into structural and curricular decision-making for the sake of efficiency or meeting imposed timetables will deal with these individual concerns down the road anyway. Once the RtI model has been implemented, it is much more difficult and less efficient to backtrack and address individual concerns. Those RtI teams which take the time to address stakeholder concerns tend to have a much better track record in moving a staff toward the collaborative culture so necessary to effectively implement RtI.

Ten Reasons Teachers Avoid RtI Collaboration

1. Autonomy-Teachers and administrators choose education as a career because they crave some measure of control over decision-making. Educators develop their own teaching/leadership styles and philosophies to reflect their personal values. As a result, educators tend to actively or passively resist outside imposition or control. RtI collaboration certainly threatens this autonomy.
2. Fear-All teachers and administrators share one trait in common. They know their own limitations. The fear is that others will discover these limitations and not accept them as valued professionals. No teacher or administrator wants to be recognized as incompetent. The fear is that RtI collaboration will expose individual limitations.
3. Job Security-Finding out limitations can be perceived as potential “dings” on performance evaluations for both teachers and administrators. Additionally, the RtI model may expose overlap or redundancy and this may threaten jobs. Because sharing resources is a key ingredient in the RtI recipe, RtI collaboration may identify underutilized resource personnel.
4. Castles-Individual fiefdoms protect job security. Our individual educational castles, created to address and protect student needs, tend to make collaboration challenging or even undesirable. Those who keep the keys of their respective castles may be loath to give these up. Sharing isn’t just a problem in kindergarten. Each school and district has its own fiefdoms and the RtI collaboration model requires open castles and transparency.
5. Content Queens and Kings-Many teachers, especially at the secondary level, entered the teaching professional because of their genuine love of their respective disciplines. Any moves away from content-centered instruction toward process or skill-centered instruction threaten their roles. Those content-centric teachers and administrators focus on content standards, but may ignore the balanced approach of the new Common Core State Standards. Sharing responsibility for teaching content with others or taking on process or skill instruction may be their concerns regarding the RtI collaboration model.
6. Test Madness-A disease endemic to many educators, but frankly more to administrators than teachers. And with good reason. Administrators are directly judged by standardized test results. And now, several states have made the move toward evaluating teachers by the test results of their students. Of course, those supporting such evaluations tend to beg at least two questions relevant to the RtI process: 1. Are standardized tests capable of accurately measuring RtI student achievement? and 2. Will teachers teach all non-tested content and process standards and continue to teach to diagnostic student needs when their jobs and salaries may be affected by the test results? Test-crazed-cultures may encourage educators to take short-cuts and teach to results, not to student needs. This is not to say that an effective RtI model and optimal standardized test results are necessarily mutually exclusive. However, test madness remains a reason why some avoid RtI collaboration.
7. Lazy, Burned-out, or Checked-out Teachers and Administrators-Let’s face it. Most sites have their share, but not as many as the public may perceive. All educators go through professional cycles of interest and lack thereof. Some will own up to their feelings; others will not. Psychologists remind us that motivation is a cyclical process. Effective practice with expert coaching leads to achieving personal goals. Achieving personal goals leads to self-satisfaction. Self-satisfaction leads back around to a positive association with practice. Teacher and administrator interest can be re-kindled with the right practice, but RtI collaboration does push to the initial practice step and those lazy, burned-out, or checked-out teachers and administrators will resist until they begin the cycle.
8. Anti-Change Agents-Many teachers and administrators gravitate toward the status-quo. “I’ve/We’ve always done it this way” or “This is how I was taught and it worked for me” or “I tried that, but it didn’t work for me/us” or “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” or “What goes around, comes around” or “This too shall pass” guide a tremendous amount of educational decision-making. We are all products of our own experiences, and change challenges our established comfort zones. Anti-change agents can be particularly adverse to RtI collaboration.
9. Fear of Differentiation-Adjusting instruction to student needs provokes resistance. No teacher feels under-worked. Adding on the task of changing instructional delivery to meet the diagnostically-determined needs of students is overwhelming to most. No wonder that tracking and pull-out programs are key features of most educational institutions. However, ask any teacher whether it would be ideal to teach to each student as his or her levels of need and you would receive a universal Yes. Dealing with the Myths of Differentiating Instruction can be helpful, but there is just no doubt that those who avoid differentiated instruction are reticent to support RtI collaboration.
10. No Support or Curricular Resources-Teachers and Administrators are all-too-often expected to do “more with less.” No wonder that the RtI model, which demands resources of time and student-centered curriculum leads to frustration and an unwillingness to whole-heartedly support RtI collaboration.

The author of this article, Mark Pennington, is an MA reading specialist, middle school teacher, and author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Included in this flexible curriculum are multiple choice reading assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. In short, everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges. 364 pages

Reading Intervention Program Questions

Which program should your district choose? What criteria should be agreed upon in the selection process? How (or can you) evaluate the success or track-record of the program? Does a one-size-fits-all approach make sense for the students you plan to serve? Which students need to be served? Is your district considering a Tier I, Tiers I and II, or Tiers I, II, and III model? Does your district have the financial and support resources necessary to match the scope of its instructional plan? What levels of reading expertise does your district have at its disposal? How well-trained are the teachers who will teach the program? Will the structure of the schools and their programs accommodate the type of reading intervention needed?

But, those questions are only one-half of the equation. Your side of the equation. The other half needs to be considered, as well, to make an informed and practical decision about which reading intervention program should merit adoption. The publisher’s side of the equation.

The Reading Intervention Program Publishing Merry-Go-Round

Following is a somewhat-cynical, but valuable, description of the reading intervention publishing process. Disclaimer: the author of this article has his own reading intervention program to sell, so keep this in mind. So, how do publishers create and market a reading intervention program and get your district to buy it?

Most all of the “big-boy” publishers (and that categorization is gender-accurate, if you look at who runs these publishing houses) already have many reading intervention programs in their catalogs. However, publishers need something new to create “buzz” and sell product. They hire a few well-respected, but lowly paid university professors to “author” (repackage) the materials. Grad students and per-hour staff writers re-work and re-package in-print and out-of-print materials. The design team ramps up and creates an attractive product. Ta dah! A new reading intervention program.

Next, the publishers jump through all the hoops to get their reading intervention programs adopted by the state. With well-placed lobbyists and state department of education employees with their hands in the deep pockets of these publishers, the hoops are less challenging.

Next, the publisher plans an aggressive marketing campaign to promote their innovative “new and improved” program. The publisher secures a prominently featured row of exhibit booths at the International Reading Association conference to launch the product. Then, the publishers get to work on the school districts. I’ll stop here, because you are involved in this part of the process and will know everything you need to know once you place that call to their program (sales) representatives.

A few comments on this latter half of the reading intervention program adoption equation…

Notice that the practitioners (teachers) have very little to do with developing the latest reading intervention fad. Despite the fact that veteran teachers have years of experience in “trial and error” reading instruction, teachers are rarely consulted in the development of new reading programs. Reading programs are publisher-developed and profit-driven. Programs are delivered as “faits accompli” to districts for approval and purchase. Textbook adoption committees, which include teachers, are left to rubber-stamp programs, ostensibly following pilot teacher recommendations. Actually, districts follow the leads of other districts and the bigger the publisher, the more “resources” are brought to bear in the decision-making. The entire process is carefully guided by publisher representatives.

Here’s another approach. Consider purchasing an economical, data-driven, program developed by an MA Reading Specialist in the classroom. A reading intervention program designed by a teacher for teachers. A reading intervention program that values the expertise of teachers. A reading intervention program that truly allows the teacher to differentiate instruction according to the individual needs of students.

Teaching Reading Strategies provides teachers of remedial upper elementary, middle school, high school, and adult students all the resources they need to turn their students into fluent readers in the shortest amount of instructional time. The instructional design and resources are perfect for Tiers I, II, and III placements. English language-learners will benefit from the design of this program–especially those who have begun reading in their primary languages. Students with learning disabilities, such as auditory and visual processing problems, will get the targeted and flexible instruction they need to address these challenges.

Rather than starting each learner from “scratch” with hours of repetitive practice, like traditional remedial reading programs, the whole-class diagnostic assessments pinpoint individual reading strengths and deficiencies. Teachers simply record the assessment results and then use the prescribed resources to help students remediate their deficiencies. Students see direct benefit and pay-off in each lesson. Instead of tedious practice in a reading skill already mastered, students feel challenged each day and learn quickly in what social psychologist, Lev Vygotsky, termed their “zone of proximal development.” Students become constructive partners in the learning process because they monitor their own progress. As a by-product, students improve self-esteem, classroom behavior, and motivation to learn.

Teachers prefer teaching students, as opposed to teaching a “canned program.” Despite the specificity and sophistication of the Teaching Reading Strategies resources, the procedures and activities assume very little prior experience in reading instruction. The Learn How to Teach This Program in 10 Minutes gets the teacher up and running. “Prep time” is minimized to allow teaching almost “on the fly.”  For example, instructional procedures are standardized to enable students to quickly “catch on” to practicing a new skill, while using the same procedure as with previous skills. Record keeping is extensive, but efficient, and is designed to be part of instruction. Teaching Reading Strategies is the comprehensive, efficient, and user-friendly resource to differentiate remedial reading instruction.

Well, at least we know how our students feel about dialectical journals… But, how should teachers feel about dialectical journals?

Teachers grapple with how to assign independent reading activities to help students interact with assigned novels or independent reading. Dialectical journals have been teacher favorites since literature-based reading pedagogy was popularized in the 1980s. KWL charts and variations upon the same theme have served as into-through-beyond activities within English-language arts, history/social science, and science courses.

At surface level, these forms of reading response seem to assist students in reaching our goals of promoting independent reading comprehension. The thought/hope has been that if we can just get students to access their own prior knowledge of content and story schema, then help students connect these to what the author has to offer, then establish a relevant and personal connection/application to the readers’ lives… students will problem-solve their way to full comprehension and reading enjoyment. The pendulum has clearly swung from the author to the reader side of the equation.

The Problem with Dialectical Journals

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After years of “teaching” this reader-centered, literature-based approach, educators are starting to see the results. Almost 60% of community college students and 30% of university students require at least one year of developmental coursework. And, yes, remedial reading is the chief subject of this remediation. http://www.communitycollegecentral.org/Downloads/Developmental_Education_TOOLKIT.pdf

Good readers may be able to put up some of this reader-centered nonsense and still engage with the text; however, students with reading difficulties desperately need comprehension strategies that will help them understand what the author has to say. The focus on personal relevance impedes comprehension. Tier I and II Response to Intervention readers confuse “What it means to me” strategies with “What the author means” strategies. The latter is much more important for developing readers (and for that matter, all readers). Some personal application within teacher-guided class discussion makes sense, but should be secondary to teaching the text itself.

In lieu of dialectical journals, teachers should help students learn and apply the five types of independent reading strategies that promote internal monitoring of the text: Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict. These SCRIP strategies promote the reader-author conversation and, thus, internal monitoring of text to help students achieve your goal: “to get them to read and understand what they are reading on their own.” Here are some SCRIP Reading Comprehension Strategies resources and bookmarks. Having a consistent language of instruction that works for narrative and expository texts is useful.

Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Get multiple choice reading assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges. 364 pages

Remedial Reading Costs: Whammy #1 On State Budgets

…..

The financial burden of increased community college enrollment has severely impacted already-strained state budgets and much can be attributed to the cost of remedial programs. For example…

• Community colleges are the most heavily subsidized educational institutions. In California, a similar undergraduate course in English 101 runs $108 at community college, $649 for the California State University, and $1320 for the University of California.
• Significant numbers of these new community college students are receiving state-funded financial aid.
• Most of the new community students double-dip by taking remedial course work, especially in reading, which repeats previously funded coursework in the K-12 system.
• Community college remediation represents a considerable financial and opportunity cost. Recent estimates suggest a $3.7 billion annual price tag just for the remediation of recent high school graduates who attend community colleges. http://all4ed.org/files/remediation.pdf.
• Most remedial students drop-out. Only 17% of students who enroll in a remedial reading course at a community college receive a bachelor’s degree within eight years, compared to 58% of students who take no remedial education courses. http://www.communitycollegecentral.org/Downloads/Developmental_Education_TOOLKIT.pdf The cost per community college dropout is $17,700 in federal and state financial aid and in city and state funding for the community college system. (Community College Spotlight, The Hechinger Report)

Remedial Reading Costs: Whammy #2 On Community Colleges

…..

Additional financial burdens due to the new wave of community college students have been placed upon the community colleges themselves. And much has been due to the remedial needs of these new students. For example…

• States have resisted increasing student fees during the economic downturn due to public pressure and the enrollment boom has exacerbated the budgetary shortfalls of community colleges.
• Community colleges have had to cut full-time staff and non-mandated coursework.
• The most expensive programs happen to be the mandated remedial programs, especially remedial reading courses, which the majority of the new students must take to prepare for transfer courses, certificate program courses, or Associates of Arts courses. A few facts will suffice: Virtually all community colleges offer remedial or developmental education. Almost 60% of community college students require at least one year of developmental coursework. http://www.communitycollegecentral.org/Downloads/Developmental_Education_TOOLKIT.pdf

Remediation, especially reading remediation, has always been a tough issue for state legislators and community colleges. Some have been reluctant to accept the reality that so many of our high school graduates or drop-outs still cannot read at the levels they need to function in society. Others recognize the problem, but play the blame game by pointing fingers at the failures of K-12 education. While the costs of providing remedial reading education are high to both state and community college budgets, the costs of not providing the resources are incalculable.

This is especially true in our economic downturn. According to the Sacramento Bee, “Unemployment for 21-25 year-olds without a college degree hovers at 25%, while those with college degrees are at 8% (December 11, 2011).” Although not the job-guarantee as in years past, community colleges and university training certainly remain gateways to economic opportunities. For students seeking accelerated degree programs, there are many options beyond the traditional community college-state university route. For example, check out Averett College for great degree programs!

The author of this article has taught remedial reading courses at all levels: elementary, middle school, high school, and community college. Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is also the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Get multiple choice reading assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges. 364 pages

Once student schedules have been set, it is frequently a logistical nightmare to make changes. Class sizes, other course placements (such as with math levels), and parent input all are part of the decision-making process. Every set-in-stone any placement process will have exceptions. New students and student transfers throughout the year come to mind. Administrators who value the importance of reading will ensure the flexibility of the process to prioritize student needs over programmatic concerns.

Once school has started in the fall, it does make sense to have a “weeding out” and “weeding in” assessment process in place to confirm proper placement for reading intervention. This is important for already-placed and yet-to-be-placed students.

Now, an initial caveat is in order before I address this important issue of finding out what students know and don’t know. I do buy into the Response to Intervention (RTI) model that minimizes tracking and promotes differentiated instruction. Most all students should be in heterogeneously mixed Tier I classes in which well-trained teachers differentiate literacy instruction. However, some mix of push-in, pull-out instruction makes sense for Tier II and III students.

Secondary Reading Program Placement Assessments

…

Now as to the assessments themselves… Why waste time and money on an achievement test that purports to determine reading levels when diagnostic assessments will provide teachers with both the sorting data and the data that can be used to differentiate instruction? Killing two birds with one stone makes sense. So, which initial diagnostic assessments are needed to double-check initial placements and place new students?

I suggest whole-class diagnostic assessments in phonics (decoding) and spelling (encoding) and individual oral fluencies from brief passages found in the grade-level literature (narrative) and history or science (expository) textbooks. The phonics and spelling diagnostics will cover the word identification side of the ledger and the fluencies will measure the word recognition side. Secondary teachers shouldn’t shy away from creating their own oral fluencies which are representative of their instructional textbooks. It’s really not rocket science. After all, teachers need to know whether students can read their books or not.

How much time will these screening assessments take to administer and record?

The comprehensive phonics test linked above takes 15 minutes to administer and 1 minute per student to correct and record on an assessment matrix. The comprehensive spelling test linked above takes 25 minutes to administer and 2 minutes per student to correct and record. Both tests can be corrected and recorded by responsible student aides, paraprofessionals, or parents. I recommend 30 second fluencies for each narrative and expository passage, so 1 minute to administer and record per student. Recording matrices are provided in the above links.

Now, of course these assessments are not the only ones we should use in reading intervention (Tier II and III) classes, but they will more than suffice as a Harry Potter sorting hat.

Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Get multiple choice reading assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges. 364 pages

From the Common Core State Standards introduction:

“The Standards are not a curriculum. They are a clear set of shared goals and expectations for what knowledge and skills will help our students succeed. Local teachers, principals, superintendents and others will decide how the standards are to be met. Teachers will continue to devise lesson plans and tailor instruction to the individual needs of the students in their classrooms.”

And more:

“By emphasizing required achievements, the Standards leave room for teachers, curriculum developers, and states to determine how those goals should be reached and what additional topics should be addressed. Thus, the Standards do not mandate such things as a particular writing process or the full range of metacognitive strategies that students may need to monitor and direct their thinking and learning. Teachers are thus free to provide students with whatever tools and knowledge their professional judgment and experience identify as most helpful for meeting the goals set out in the Standards.”

And more:

“Teachers will continue to devise lesson plans and tailor instruction to the individual needs of the students in their classrooms.” http://www.corestandards.org

In other words, despite the fact that the Standards put all of us on the same page, in terms of grade-level expectations, teachers retain the autonomy to teach how they see fit.

Cyclical Instruction

The Common Core State Standards validate the need for review, as well as the cyclical nature of instruction by identifying the skills needed to scaffold higher level instruction and practice. These directions appear throughout the document:

“The following skills, marked with an asterisk (*) are particularly likely to require continued attention in higher grades as they are applied to increasingly sophisticated writing and speaking.”

Teachers advised to skip review of previous grade-level standards and concentrate on the grade-level standards that will be tested, now have firm legs to stand upon when they say “No” to administrators only interested in achieving AYP goals.

Common Core DI (Differentiated Instruction)

Implicit in the mandated review is the need for effective diagnostic assessments to determine what and how much requires re-teaching to establish a solid foundation for grade-level instruction. Using data to impact instructional decisions will help teachers decide which content and skills are best reviewed whole-class and which content and skills are best addressed via small group or individualized instruction.

For example, if initial diagnostic assessments indicate that the whole class needs review of subjects and predicates, whole class instruction and guided practice will certainly be the most efficient means of review; thereafter, if the formative assessment on subjects and predicates shows that half a dozen students have not yet mastered these concepts, small group instruction or targeted individual practice makes sense. However, if initial diagnostic assessments indicate that only half a dozen students have not yet mastered subjects and predicates, it would certainly be advisable to begin with differentiated instruction, rather than waste the time of students who have already mastered these concepts.

Common Core RTI (Response to Intervention)

Again, from the Common Core State Standards introduction:

“The Standards set grade-specific standards but do not define the intervention methods or materials necessary to support students who are well below or well above grade-level expectations. No set of grade-specific standards can fully reflect the great variety in abilities, needs, learning rates, and achievement levels of students in any given classroom. However, the Standards do provide clear signposts alongthe way to the goal of college and career readiness for all students.”

http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf

Common Core ELL (English Language Learners)

“It is also beyond the scope of the Standards to define the full range of supports appropriate for English language learners and for students with special needs. At the same time, all students must have the opportunity to learn and meet the same high standards if they are to access the knowledge and skills necessary in their post–high school lives.”

http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf

The author of this article, Mark Pennington, publishes user-friendly teaching resources to differentiate instruction in the fields of reading/ELA. Visit www.penningtonpublishing.com for free resources, including 13 diagnostic reading/ELA assessments.

Here’s my fractured fairy tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The two-age story includes all plot elements (character-setting-problem/situation-internal and external conflict-complications-climax-falling action-resolution), as well as examples of  foreshadowing, direct and indirect characterization, and a twist. Ideal for middle and high schoolers, maybe for some upper elementary, but it’s quite twisted, so use some judgment here. Altering the rhetorical stance or changing up the ending is a great writing application to follow this lesson.

Attached is the story, ready for your plot diagram. Also attached is a matching quiz of the plot elements found in the story. Goldilocks Story  Goldilocks Quiz

When not writing twisted fairy tales, Mark Pennington authors such texts as Teaching Reading Strategies, Teaching Grammar and Mechanics, Teaching Essay Strategies, and Teaching Spelling and Vocabulary.

A response to one of my recent posts reflects this worry:

“…taking away (or throwing it into the ‘narrative’ category) creative writing is going to kill creativity in our country. I wish they would realize that creative writing goes hand-in-hand with critical-thinking and problem-solving… I went to a workshop this spring in which one of the writers of the CC standards said MOST of the non-fiction reading/writing would come in the history and science classes… But they do not make that clear enough in the standards. If that is what they want, then they need to speak up soon before ELS teachers stop teaching literature all together! (And if that is the case, I will be getting out of teaching).”

So, what’s all the fuss?

Common Core Content Area Reading

Citing the Distribution of Literary and Informational Passages by Grade in the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress NAEP framework, the introductory pages of the Common Core State Standards call for the following distributions of text: 50% literary/50% information (4^th grade); 45% literary/55% information (8^th grade); 30% literary/70% information (12^th grade).

Secondary ELA teachers are quick to point to the CCSS reading footnote:

² As with reading, the percentages in the table reflect the sum of student writing, not just writing in ELA settings.

Common Core Content Area Writing

Similarly, the CCSS introduction follows the NAEP lead in the Distribution of Communicative Purposes by Grade in the 2011 NAEP Writing Framework, but with more explicit direction than with respect to the reading distribution.

“It follows that writing assessments aligned with the Standards should adhere to the distribution of writing purposes across grades outlined by NAEP.” (CCSS Introduction p. 5)

And “the Standards aim to align instruction with this framework.” (p. 5) So, what are these writing distributions? 30% to persuade/35% to explain/35% to convey experience (4^th grade); 35% to persuade/35% to explain/30% to convey experience (8^th grade); 40% to persuade/40% to explain/20% to convey experience (12^th grade).

Again, secondary English teachers are quick to point to the CCSS writing footnote, which is more explicit than the reading footnote and provides a useful example:

¹ The percentages on the table reflect the sum of student reading, not just reading in ELA settings. Teachers of senior English classes, for example, are not required to devote 70 percent of reading to informational texts. Rather, 70 percent of student reading across the grade should be informational.

It should be noted that “The Great Shift” actually introduces a greater curricular change for elementary teachers. In response to the guidelines of the National Reading Panel, most elementary teachers spend 90-120 minutes daily in reading instruction (primarily literature), while reductively integrating writing, social studies, and science instruction. There is just so much time in the day. But, elementary teachers can adjust reading and writing assignments to reflect this shift more easily than their secondary colleagues.

Indeed, the challenges for secondary teachers to conform to the change in emphasis in the CCSS standards will be many. And since “The Great Shift” has been introduced in the ELA standards of the CCSS, the initiative of how to respond has been clearly dumped in the lap of English teachers. If follows that if the strategic goals of ELA teachers will be to spread the wealth (pain) of the CCSS mandates to include other content area teachers, a discussion of tactical options will be advisable.

Tactics for Developing Common Core Reading and Writing

• It’s time to discuss curriculum with history/social studies and science colleagues. Let’s add on visual and performing arts friends as well.
• Recognize and validate the fact that content area colleagues have full curricular plates already and reading/writing add-ons will not be universally welcomed.
• Make the Common Core State Standards the “bad guys,” not ELA teachers.
• Recognize the expertise of content area colleagues. They are probably better informational (to explain) readers than are ELA teachers. Writing may or may not be a different matter.
• Make peace with excerpts, articles, abstracts, abridged versions, editorials, etc. Non-fiction does not have to come in 300 plus page volumes. Content area teachers will be willing to compromise and add small bites throughout their curriculum.
• Cherished class novels may have to go.
• Be willing to give up pet instructional language and adopt universal language of reading and writing instruction across the curricular areas.
• Be willing to relinquish control. What if history/social studies teachers handled the bulk of persuasive writing? What if science teachers handled the bulk of informational/explanatory writing? Would the world end?
• Consider a humanities-based, interdisciplinary approach. We are simply too comfortable in our content area castles.
• Support staff development and include outside “experts.” Yes, “a prophet is without honor in his own country.”
• Support; don’t criticize. Baby steps are important here. It’s preachy, but needs to be said.

I welcome additional tactics.

Pennington Publishing provides two curricular writing resources aligned to the Common Core State Standards. Both are appropriate to help teachers differentiate writing instruction for upper elementary, middle school, and high school students: Teaching Essay Strategies and Teaching Grammar and Mechanics.

The Weekly Vocabulary Word List

In many classrooms the predominant means of vocabulary instruction is weekly vocabulary word list. Pass it out on Monday; have students look up and write down definitions, make flashcards, do a crossword puzzle, do a word sort, write context clue sentences, etc. Then test on Friday. The problem is that this approach does not work. It’s ineffective and inefficient.

It’s ineffective.

Students memorize the list for the Friday test and forget half of them by the next week. “Rote memorization of words and definitions is the least effective instructional method resulting in little long-term effect (Kameenui, Dixon, Carine 1987).”

It’s inefficient.

Even if students were to remember all of the, say 20 words, on the weekly vocabulary word list for the entire school year, they would only have mastered 600 words. But, the American lexicon is over 800,000 words. The SAT® word bank is over 30,000. 600 words won’t make a dent in those numbers.

According to reading research, students need to learn 3,000 new words per year just to make year-to-year grade level progress (Honig 1983). So learning only 600 words is a very small drop in a very big bucket. But it is a bucket we desperately need to fill-especially for educationally disadvantaged students, whose “word poverty” (Louisa C. Moats) dooms them to the “Matthew Effect” (Keith Stanovich) in which the poorer tend to get poorer.

To teach students 3,000 words a year, students would have to learn 17 words each school day (3,000 words over 178 school days). However, classroom intervention studies suggest that only 8 to 10 words can be retained through direct instruction in one week (Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986). That works out to about 300 words per year-hardly enough.

So, if vocabulary word lists are ineffective and inefficient. What does work to teach those 3,000 words per year?

Three Effective and Efficient Methods of Vocabulary Instruction

1. Independent Reading

Let’s use Luis as our example. Reading 30 minutes per day for homework at a rate of 200 words per minute, for a total of 132 days (4 days per week in a typical school year), means that Luis would be exposed to 792,000 words (30 x 200 x 132). If Luis reads text at the recommended 5% unknown words* level of word recognition recommended by reading researchers (Stahl, 1999), this means that he would be exposed to 39,600 unfamiliar words per year (792,000 x .05). Because students learn between 5 and 10 percent of previously unknown words in a single reading (Stahl, 1999), Luis will have learned between 1,980 and 3,960 new words at home! Not to mention reading in class.

*That 5% unknown words level is critically important. If students read texts below their current reading levels, even lots of reading won’t result in measurable vocabulary growth (Carver, 1994).

2. Greek and Latin Word Parts

Reading researchers suggest that learning Greek and Latin word parts is an effective and efficient method for acquiring vocabulary (e.g., Anglin, 1993; Biemiller & Slonim, 2001). Over 50% of all academic vocabulary contains one or more Greek or Latin prefix, root, or suffix. Unlike memorizing vocabulary word lists, memorizing word parts produces enormous pay-offs because one prefix, root, or suffix may be a component of hundreds of words. Learning these word families provides significant utility for the reader, especially those word parts with the highest utility.

Just 9 prefixes constitute 75% of words with prefixes (White, Sowell, & Yanigihara, 1989). Comprehensive frequency studies have not been completed on roots; however, there is general consensus as to utility of a few hundred roots. There is less agreement on the value of teaching suffixes. Suffixes can often have vague meanings such as “the state of”; suffixes are often merely inflectional forms; they also tend to vary spellings. However, some study of suffixes that have specific meanings is certainly warranted. Check out a great list of Greek and Latin word parts for instruction here.

3. Tier One, Two, and Three Words (Beck et al., 2002)

Some words do not need to be taught. Tier One Words are high utility words that will become part of a student’s lexicon incidentally through oral language or reading. Tier Three Words are rare, specific-to-the-subject words that can sometimes be learned through effective application of context clues.

But some words do need to be taught. When reading a literature selection, certain words that are important to building comprehension or understanding of the text are essential to learn, especially if these words are used in a variety of forms, in other contexts or subjects of study, or are precise uses of generally-understood concepts. These are Tier Two Words.

For example, examine this sentence: The happy child was fortunate to have such a sunny disposition.

Tier One Words: happy, child, sunny

Tier Two Word: fortunate

Tier Three Word: disposition

The approach would be to assume that the reader knows the Tier One Words and leave the reader to use context clues to derive a basic understanding of the Tier Three Word. The Tier Two Word would be the word that deserves the instructional attention.

Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Get multiple choice reading assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges. 364 pages