Common Core State Standards

Common Core Standards

Learn, plan, and implement Common Core in your classroom. Use the Resource Correlations tool to find Common Core-aligned resources from Reading A-Z, the ELL Edition, Writing A-Z, or Science A-Z or view all correlated resources at once. We have also provided information on key CCSS topics, why they are important, and how Reading A-Z can be used to implement elements of CCSS.

Resource Correlations

Foundational Skills

What Are Foundational Skills?

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have identified a set of skills that students must master before they can become fluent readers and comprehend what they are reading. Since these skills are at the very foundation of becoming a proficient reader, they are called foundational skills. These skills are taught somewhat sequentially, with some natural overlapping of skills:

  • Alphabet
  • Concept of print
  • Phonological awareness
  • Phonics
  • High-Frequency Words
  • Fluency

Common Core State Standards Foundational Skills video

Alphabet

Students need to know the English language is presented using 26 letters. They must be able to recognize, name, and form these letters in order to read and write.

Print Concepts

When introducing students to written language they must understand the basic organization and features of print: read left to right; top to bottom; letters create words and words create sentences; spaces between words; ending and beginning punctuation. Children frequently come to understand these concepts through owning their first books.

Phonological Awareness

This foundational skill is about recognizing the sounds of language. It begins with word awareness and being able to recognize, for example, the number of words that make up a spoken sentence. Secondary mastery of these skills includes recognizing rhyme and syllables. At the most detailed level, the phoneme level, students can discern the sounds that make up a word. They can segment the sounds within a word, blend sounds together to make a word, and substitute sounds to make new words.

Phonics

Students must match a unit of sound (a phoneme) to the letter or letters that make the sound. Separating the written word into its individual sounds and blending the individual sounds of letters to make words is the foundation of reading.

High-Frequency Word Recognition

Students must be able to recognize and read a collection of high-frequency words by sight and do so with increasing automaticity.

Fluency

Students must be able to read and comprehend text on-level – accurately, at the appropriate rate and with the correct expression. This is best accomplished by repeated readings of text passages of increasing complexity while tracking the reading rate and accuracy.

Become your school's Common Core expert. We'll focus on one key Common Core topic each month.

  • Sign up for our free webinars.
  • Watch previously recorded webinars for any topics you've missed.

You will need to create a free Go To Meeting account to see the webinar videos.

Why Are Foundational Skills Important?

Students must master foundational skills before they can become fluent readers and comprehend text. Foundational skills instruction is the first reading instruction that students should receive. Each skill should be consistently reinforced. Foundational skills are essential for students to learn how to both read and write. They are the skills that help them to decode unknown words and use word knowledge to comprehend more complex writing across varying levels and genres.

How Do Reading A-Z Resources Support Teaching Foundational Skills?

Reading A-Z provides easy access to a rich collection of resources necessary to help all students develop strong Foundational Skills in reading. Many of these resources are available in printable and projectable formats.

  • Alphabet Books and activities build skills in letter naming, recognition, and formation.
  • Books, lesson plans, and activities address all phonics and phonological awareness elements.
  • High-Frequency Word Books and the Most Common Word Flashcards provide students the opportunity to work with words in isolation and in context.
  • Leveled Fluency Passages and Reader's Theater Scripts support practicing fluency.

Also available:

  • Shared Reading Books and lessons teach foundational skills, including concepts of print and a variety of reading strategies.
  • 1,000+ Leveled Books and lesson plans support reading at 29 different levels.

Informational Text

What Is Informational Text?

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) defines "informational text" as a broad category of nonfiction resources, including: biographies; autobiographies; books about history, social studies, science, and the arts; technical texts (including how-to books and procedural books); and literary nonfiction. The CCSS stress the importance of focused instruction using informational text with students in the elementary grades.

Watch the Common Core State Standards Informational Text video

Informational text is designed to make it easier for the reader to find information. This includes using such eye-catching features as section heads, bold-faced terms, table of contents, glossary, captioned photos, art, and info-graphics (graphs, tables, charts and diagrams, etc.)

Watch the Common Core State Standards Visual Devices video

When selecting informational resources for children, text quality should be judged for its accuracy, the expertise and credibility of the writer, and the currency of the information presented. The developmental appropriateness of the writing, clarity and directness of the language should also be considered.

Watch the February webinar on Informational Text: You will need to create a free Go To Meeting account to see the webinar video.

Become your school's Common Core expert. We'll focus on one key Common Core topic each month.

  • Sign up for our free webinars.
  • Watch previously recorded webinars for any topics you've missed.

You will need to create a free Go To Meeting account to see the webinar videos.

Why Is Increasing The Reading Of Informational Text Important?

Traditional K-6 reading instruction has always relied heavily on literature and fictional text. Studies show that only 7-15% of classroom time is spent studying informational text. Yet by sixth grade, most of what students are required to read is nonfiction. What's more, 80% of all adult reading is devoted to expository or nonfiction text.

If students are to better comprehend science, social studies, and math text - as well as meet the common core reading and writing requirements for graduation - then we need to increase their exposure to informational texts early in their formal schooling.

Teaching students the skills and strategies to successfully read and comprehend informational text is critical to their future success in higher education and the workplace.

The English Language Arts [ELA] Common Core State Standards recommend more reading of informational text with a ratio of literary to informational as follows:

Grade Span Literary Informational
K-4 50% 50%
5-8 45% 55%
9-12 30% 70%

How Does Reading A-Z Address the Need for Informational Text?

Reading A-Z offers an extensive collection of 800+ nonfiction books, including informational texts in a variety of genres covering an array of topics. All books are available in both printable and projectable formats, and the Learning A-Z Text Leveling System ensures books gradually increase in complexity over 29 levels.

  • Leveled Books with lessons target specific skills and strategies along with supporting worksheets, a graphic organizer, a set of discussion cards and a comprehension quiz.
  • Common Core Supplements for both nonfiction and fiction Leveled Books address specific key shifts of Common Core instruction.

Also available:

  • Shared Reading nonfiction books ensure early readers work with informational texts.
  • Our Close Reading Packs contain a large selection of informational text to support reading multiple, short texts closely.
  • Visual Devices feature explicit instruction on text elements, such as graphs, charts, maps, schedules, or other visual texts.
  • Content Area Reading organizes leveled books into featured groups of common content area topics.

Text Complexity

What Is Text Complexity?

Text complexity is what the term implies: how challenging is the material for the child at their specific grade level. The Common Core State Standards use three factors to determine the complexity of a text:

  • Qualitative Measures
  • Quantitative Measures
  • Considerations relating to the reader and task

Watch the Common Core State Standards Text Complexity video

Qualitative measures examine text attributes that can only be evaluated by the person that is reading the book or passage. The reader is required to consider such factors as:

    Levels of meaning: Is the purpose explicitly stated or is it vague? Does it have a single level of meaning vs. multiple purposes?

    Clarity and conventions of language: Is the language clear or is it vague and purposefully misleading? Is the language contemporary and familiar or is it unfamiliar and archaic? Is the text conversational or academic? Is there wide use of figurative language, idiomatic expressions, etc.? Is the text cohesive or does it lack cohesion?

    Knowledge demands: Is it a single-themed text and relatively simple as opposed to multiple-themed and complex? Does the text deal with common everyday experiences or does it present experiences that are likely vastly different from those of the reader? Is the text presented from single or multiple perspectives? Are there frequent changes in the setting? How many, if any, references to other texts does the text contain?

    Structure: How is the text organized - chronologically or in another logical fashion? Is it randomly arranged with complex and loosely connected content? Does the structure and organization make sense? Are sections and features clearly labeled? Is the text free from unnecessary distractions?

    Visual device complexity: Are graphical devices relatively simple or are they complex? Are the graphics more "for show" rather than necessary to help the student understand the material being presented?

Quantitative measures are what publishers traditionally relied upon to determine the difficulty of a text. There are dozens of formulas used to figure text difficulty. Many of these formulas consider only two factors: sentence length and the number of difficult or unfamiliar words or they look at sentence length and syllable count. Needless to say, these factors are fairly limiting when it comes to determining the complexity of a text.

Considerations relating to the reader and tasks is the vital third component. Each reader brings different skills, background, and motivation to the act of reading. For example, a student who is interested in the topic being read is likely to bring more background knowledge to the reading task and want to learn more.

The importance of the assignment itself can also influence the reading activity. Skimming a book or article for a key piece of information or reading leisurely places less demand on the reading task than if a student is preparing for an exam, assembling a piece of equipment, or reading for long-term retention.

Become your school's Common Core expert. We'll focus on one key Common Core topic each month.

  • Sign up for our free webinars.
  • Watch previously recorded webinars for any topics you've missed.

You will need to create a free Go To Meeting account to see the webinar videos.

Why Is Text Complexity An Issue?

Over the past 50 years the text that students have encountered in middle and high school had decreased in complexity, while textbooks in colleges, universities, and the workplace have become more complex. As a result too many students graduating from high school lack sufficient skills required to comprehend the text they encounter in college and the workplace. The authors of the Common Core State ELA Standards have taken steps to ensure that greater attention is paid to gradually increasing the complexity of the text students read and comprehend as they move through school.

How Does Reading A-Z Address Text Complexity?

Reading A-Z offers books designed and written to 29 levels of difficulty. Great care has been taken to analyze each and every book using multiple quantitative and qualitative factors. Teachers can present these materials with confidence, knowing that each leveled book meets the required Common Core standards.

  • Read about our Text Leveling System to learn how we accurately and reliably measure the complexity of a text.
  • Our Level Correlation Chart shows how Learning A-Z Levels compare to other common leveling systems.

Close Reading

What Is Close Reading?

Close Reading is a central focus of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). It requires students to get truly involved with the text they are reading. The purpose is to teach them to notice features and language used by the author. Students will be required to think thoroughly and methodically about the details in a text.

Watch the Common Core - 5 Tips for Close Reading video

Close reading isn't the old "students read, teacher questions and evaluates" model. While it is initially modeled and then guided by a teacher, over time the teacher releases the responsibility of close reading to the student. Teachers help students determine how a text is organized, and understand the effect of the author's word choice in a certain passage. Close reading goes "deeper than the text". It mines what is under the surface of the words. Students eventually evaluate or critique what is written.

Watch the Common Core State Standards Close Reading video

Become your school's Common Core expert. We'll focus on one key Common Core topic each month.

  • Sign up for our free webinars.
  • Watch previously recorded webinars for any topics you've missed.

You will need to create a free Go To Meeting account to see the webinar videos.

Why Is Close Reading Important?

Close reading teaches students to seek out micro-levels of understanding. It's more than being able to retell a story or provide a main idea or supporting details from a text. When students are taught to read a text closely they become more skilled at locating evidence within a sentence or a paragraph or a page of a text or story. Then orally or in writing, they can justify answers to text-dependent questions based on evidence. These are basic close reading skills as outlined by the Common Core English language arts Standards that every student must know to succeed in college and career.

As educators, we're concerned about students' lack of comprehension, especially of informational text. Today many students are barely grazing the surface of the text they read. They typically don't take the time to understand and make connections to the text. Close reading is being emphasized by the CCSS to ensure today's students dig deeper into the text, and start making those connections.

How Can Reading A-Z Resources Support the Teaching of Close Reading?

Reading A-Z's close reading materials draw students into the text and get them involved in examining the facts and details.

  • Close Reading Packs offer multiple re-readings of a short text for different purposes in order to find evidence to answer a Key Question.
  • More than 1,500 Leveled Books at 29 levels of difficulty enable teachers to provide developmentally appropriate texts for students to practice the skills and strategies of close reading.
  • Graphic organizers and comprehensive lesson plans for leveled books support close reading instruction and practice.
  • Shared Reading Books help our youngest learners begin reading text more closely. Each five-day lesson plan includes a section devoted to text-dependent questions. A second projectable version of each book includes character prompts. The characters ask the reader to complete tasks and interact with the book.
  • Comprehension Skill Packs provide direct and explicit instruction on up to 16 different comprehension skills to support student's close reading of any text.
  • Our Paired Books lessons include a set of text-dependent questions that require students to closely read and compare and contrast two related texts.

Text-dependent Questions

What Are Text-dependent Questions?

Text-dependent questions are those that can only be answered by referring back to the text being read. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) require students to "read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it. They must also cite pertinent evidence from the text when responding orally or when writing an answer to questions about the text. Students can no longer rely solely on prior knowledge or personal experience.

Watch the Common Core State Standards Text-dependent Questions video

Become your school's Common Core expert. We'll focus on one key Common Core topic each month.

  • Sign up for our free webinars.
  • Watch previously recorded webinars for any topics you've missed.

You will need to create a free Go To Meeting account to see the webinar videos.

Why Are Text-dependent Questions Important?

Good text-dependent questions guarantee careful investigation of text. They will often lead students to discover something important that may have been overlooked the first time they read the text. They guide students to dive deeper into the text, and to answer or identify the core understandings or insights that are essential.

Text-dependent questions can be used by the teacher to promote discussion and help students to understand even better what they are reading. They can be used to start student discussions and give students opportunities to discuss the text with each other and voice their opinions.

The Common Core ELA Standards require moving instruction away from generic questions such as, "What is the main idea and three supporting details? to questions that require students to analyze what they are reading. An example of a text-dependent question would be something like "The article describes the male emperor penguin as 'tough'. Give two pieces of information from the article that demonstrates how they are tough.

How Does Reading A-Z Support Teaching/Using Text-Dependent Questions?

Text-dependent questions that students respond to verbally or in writing can be found in a multitude of supporting instructional resources across Reading A-Z.

  • Leveled Book Common Core Lesson Supplements contain a section devoted to text-dependent questions.
  • Every Leveled Book has a complete guided reading lesson plan, comprehension quiz, and set of discussion cards (levels A-Z2). Each discussion card is tagged with the specific reading skill it targets, such as:
    • Compare and contrast
    • Cause and effect
    • Make inferences/draw conclusions
    • Analyze and evaluate
  • All Shared Reading Books come with a five-day lesson plan, with a section devoted to text-dependent questions. Each Shared Reading Projectable Book with Prompts offers opportunities for readers to complete tasks and interact with the projectable tools to answer text-dependent questions.
  • A text-dependent Key Question is the focus of every Close Reading Pack. Multiple re-reads of the text encourage students to closely read in order to answer the Key Question.
  • Our Paired Books lessons include a set of text-dependent questions that require students to closely read and compare and contrast two related texts.

Academic Vocabulary

What Is Academic Vocabulary?

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) define academic vocabulary words as the words that are traditionally used in academic dialogue and text. Specifically, it refers to words that are not necessarily common or that children would encounter in conversation. These words often relate to other more familiar words that students use. For example, rather than watch, observe. They are also words that help students understand oral directions and classroom instructional dialog. They also help students to comprehend text across different content areas- including math, science, and social studies/history.

Vocabulary words are often categorized into three tiers.

Tier 1 words: These words are basic vocabulary or the more common words most children will know. They include high-frequency words and usually are not multiple meaning words.

Tier 2 words: Less familiar, yet useful vocabulary found in written text and shared between the teacher and student in conversation. The Common Core State Standards refers to these as "general academic words." Sometimes they are referred to as "rich vocabulary." These words are more precise or subtle forms of familiar words and include multiple meaning words. Instead of walk for example, saunter could be used. These words are found across a variety of domains.

Tier 3 words: CCSS refers to these words as "domain specific;" they are critical to understanding the concepts of the content taught in schools. Generally, they have low frequency use and are limited to specific knowledge domains. Examples would include words such as isotope, peninsula, refinery. They are best learned when teaching specific content lessons, and tend to be more common in informational text.

Become your school's Common Core expert. We'll focus on one key Common Core topic each month.

  • Sign up for our free webinars.
  • Watch previously recorded webinars for any topics you've missed.

You will need to create a free Go To Meeting account to see the webinar videos.

Why Is Teaching Academic Vocabulary Important?

Vocabulary's link to comprehension has been extensively researched and the importance of directly teaching vocabulary has been firmly established. Unfortunately, in recent years the teaching of vocabulary has not been frequent or systematic in schools. The Common Core includes vocabulary instruction and reinforcement in the English Language Arts [ELA] standards. The standards dealing with vocabulary focus on "understanding words and phrases, their relationships, and their nuances and on acquiring new vocabulary."

The Common Core ELA standards stress the need to provide direct and explicit instruction for academic vocabulary. When teaching vocabulary, it is best not to make students look up words in a dictionary or a glossary and write out the definition. They usually pick the first option, and it often isn't the right one.

We recommend the 6 steps that Robert Marzano presents in his book Building Academic Vocabulary (2004).

Step 1: Teacher provides a description, explanation or example of the new term
Step 2: Students restate an explanation of the new term in their own words
Step 3: Students create a nonlinguistic representation of the term
Step 4: Students periodically do activities that help add to their knowledge of the vocabulary terms
Step 5: Students are periodically asked to discuss terms with one another
Step 6: Students are periodically involved in games that allow them to review terms

How Does Reading A-Z Support Teaching Academic Vocabulary?

Each Leveled Book Common Core Lesson Supplement features academic vocabulary words important to discussing the book. Words are listed whether they are used in the book or in the lesson plan to ensure students can be successful with the instruction.

Writing

What Is Writing?

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) require students to be able to write effectively and proficiently. In order to ensure college and career readiness, students must be able to write for a variety of purposes, cite evidence from text, research and present knowledge on a topic, and produce and publish writing in a variety of formats.

The common core standards focus on three writing categories:
1. explanatory/informational
2. narrative
3. opinion/argument

Writing assignments are not what they used to be. Not so long ago, many teachers had students concentrate on fictional or personal narrative writing. Very little attention was paid to how they interpreted and wrote informational text.

However, key shifts in writing objectives have been made by CCSS. Students must now be able to confidently write about a text. They must be able to compose more extensive pieces where they have a chance to write it, read it, review it and revise it. Wherever possible, technology needs to be a part of the instruction as well — whether it is for the writing itself or to access multiple sources of information.

Become your school's Common Core expert. We'll focus on one key Common Core topic each month.

  • Sign up for our free webinars.
  • Watch previously recorded webinars for any topics you've missed.

You will need to create a free Go To Meeting account to see the webinar videos.

Why Is Writing Important?

Studies show that learning to present important information in an organized piece of writing helps students generate a greater understanding of a text. In addition, it helps to improve both their reading comprehension and their writing skills. With the implementation of the Common Core English language arts Standards, students will be required to use writing skills to incorporate the skills of citing evidence from text. They will learn to analyze content using correct English rules of grammar. They will be encouraged to develop a highly academic and rich vocabulary, and to report findings on the subjects they choose to cover.

Writing about texts will also bolster overall comprehension and meaning behind the text through building knowledge about a topic or reflection. This includes written responses to text-dependent questions.

For example, in grade 4 of the common core writing standards (W.4.1), students should be able to write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information. In short, it says that students must be able to do the following:

  • Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer's purpose
  • Provide reasons supported by facts and details
  • Link opinion and reasons using words and phrases
  • Provide a concluding statement or section related to the opinion presented

How Do Reading A-Z's Resources Support The Teaching Of Writing?

Reading A-Z books offer excellent models of how to organize ideas in order or to explain or persuade with one's writing.

  • Leveled Books from various genres or text types provide models of writing explanatory/informational, narrative, or opinion/argument texts.
    • To Drill or Not to Drill? is an example of pro/con writing.
    • How to Make Ice Cream is an example of a how-to book.
    • Wordless Books for titles from levels aa-J provide writing practice for even the youngest readers.
  • All Leveled Book quizzes for books level C and above feature at least one extended response question. Students must write an answer to the open-ended question using sound reasoning.
  • Writer's Responses for select titles from levels E-Z encourage students to reflect on the deeper meaning of each book read. Prompts support writing that applies, synthesizes, or evaluates a book's enduring understanding.
  • Poetry Writing Lessons include direct instruction for 11 types of poetry. Each lesson includes instruction details, and examples of each poetry type with scaffolded writing worksheets for the student.
  • Common Core Supplements and Close Reading Packs require students to find evidence from multiple places within a text or from multiple texts to write an answer to a Key Question.

Assessment

What Is An Assessment?

An assessment is any formal or informal measurement of student progress used to improve overall learning. As of the 2014-2015 school year, most of the current formal end-of-year state tests will be replaced by a new exam created by one of two consortiums that evaluates students against the set of new Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

The common core assessments created by the consortiums will measure both student achievement and progress on the CCSS. These assessments include:

  • Interim/benchmark assessments
  • Formative assessments
  • Performance assessments
  • Summative assessments

The criteria for these new Common Core ELA assessments will include:

  • An intense focus on the close examination of text
  • Mastery of complex literary and informational reading
  • The ability to infer meaning from what is read
  • The ability to both answer text-dependent questions and build arguments using evidence from the text

Students will be required to demonstrate a greater depth of knowledge within subject areas, cite evidence from the text in support of answers, and use technology to answer certain questions.

The types of assessment formats will be enhanced from traditional state testing items (such as multiple choice questions) to also include performance tasks, technology items, and constructed responses. In addition, writing about texts will be required to improve overall comprehension and meaning behind the text.

Three writing types will specifically be covered within the new CCSS framework: explanatory/informational, narrative, and opinion/argument.

Become your school's Common Core expert. We'll focus on one key Common Core topic each month.

  • Sign up for our free webinars.
  • Watch previously recorded webinars for any topics you've missed.

You will need to create a free Go To Meeting account to see the webinar videos.

Why Are Assessments Important?

The purpose of CCSS and common core standards assessments are to ensure that the expectations and objectives at each grade level are the same across every school, district, and state. However, the standards still allow educators the flexibility to teach in ways that meet the needs of their particular student population. The CCSS assessments will require students to apply learning in more complex ways. This will help students to better prepare for both college and for making their way in the workplace.

Reports will be supplied to teachers and administrators, providing specific information on how students are progressing in meeting CCSS requirements. These requirements include: demonstrating independence; building strong content knowledge; responding to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline; comprehension and critiques; valuing evidence; using technology and digital media strategically and capably; and understanding other perspectives and cultures.

How Do Reading A-Z Resources Support the New CCSS Assessments?

The vast collection of resources at Reading A-Z supports a range of skills that many students will be assessed on under the Common Core standards. Every resource listed as support for a particular Common Core key topic will help make students more successful.

  • More than 1,500 Leveled Books have quizzes with a range of text dependent multiple-choice and extended response questions. The variety in cognitive rigor, depth of knowledge, and question types allows educators to measure an array of reading skills.
  • Benchmark Books and Passages with accompanying Running Records provide teachers with assessment tools at every level to determine the developmentally appropriate reading level for each student and to monitor progress.