Common Core Standards
Now is the time to learn, plan, and implement Common Core in your classroom. To get you started, we're providing an easy-to-read chart showing how Headsprout correlates to the Common Core State Standards, and we're providing information on key CCSS topics, why they are important, and how Headsprout resources can be used to implement elements of CCSS.
Resource Correlations
See how Early Reading and Reading Comprehension correlate to Common Core.
Key Topics
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
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. Attend our free webinars every month in 2013. 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.
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 Headsprout Resources Support Teaching Foundational Skills?
Headsprout Early Reading begins as early as a non-reader level and gets students reading up to a mid-second grade reading level. The program is made up of 80 online episodes that focus on five main areas of reading that ensure students learn critical foundational skills. Headsprout Early Reading helps students master phonics and phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Headsprout Early Reading also teaches other important foundational skills, like capitalization, punctuation, and more. Additionally, more than 80 Sprout Stories accompany the program to ensure students receive the reading practice they need.Headsprout Early Reading teaches that words can begin or end with the same sound and that words can be broken down into onsets and rimes. Students first build words by selecting sounds, later producing those words and matching their production to a sample, and finally saying those words in the context of a story. Throughout the program, many Speak Aloud exercises engage students in the practice of orally producing sounds through a scaffolded presentation of increasingly complex blends and phonemic units.
Students build oral reading fluency by repeated readings of passages that gradually increase in difficulty. The narrator models appropriate pace and intonation, while students do repeated reading of familiar and unfamiliar passages to build reading rates.
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.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.)
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. Attend our free webinars every month in 2013. 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.
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 Headsprout Address the Need for Informational Text?
In Headsprout Reading Comprehension, students learn strategies to answer literal, inferential, main idea, and vocabulary questions, which are then applied across a variety of passages, including many informational texts. Throughout the program, students read and answer questions about readings related to astronomy, geology, life science, and social studies. Students are taught to "read to learn" through strategies taught in the program that they can apply to comprehend and process technical text from a wide range of fields.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
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?
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. Attend our free webinars every month in 2013. 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.
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 Headsprout Address Text Complexity?
Headsprout Reading Comprehension teaches comprehension skills across increasingly complex text, from a mid-2nd grade level to a mid-4th grade level. Students are first taught to apply four main comprehension skills — literal, inferential, main idea, and derived vocabulary from context — to passages at a beginning to mid-2nd grade level. As students demonstrate mastery, the program introduces increasingly complex text that spans literary and informational texts, poetry, as well as visual devices such as Venn diagrams, maps, scales, cross sections, and tables of contents. The text presented in visual devices and text passages increases to a mid-4th grade level and introduces more complex themes alongside longer passages, all the while ensuring successful application of key comprehension strategies.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.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.
Become your school's Common Core expert. Attend our free webinars every month in 2013. 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.
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 Headsprout Resources Support the Teaching of Close Reading?
Headsprout Reading Comprehension helps students master close reading, referring them back to the text to answer questions when working with visual organizers, like Venn diagrams, tree diagrams, cross-sections, and many more. Headsprout Reading Comprehension requires students to apply these skills to activities and assessments of all kinds — making them more successful and excited to read.Students are taught to "look back" in a passage to find the part of the reading selection that will help them answer literal, inferential, main idea, and vocabulary comprehension questions. Students are instructed to first identify which comprehension strategy must be used to answer a question (e.g., "What is this question asking you to do?"), cite the text by clicking on the part of the passage that will help answer the question, and then select the appropriate answer.
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.Become your school's Common Core expert. Attend our free webinars every month in 2013. 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.
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 Headsprout Support Teaching/Using Text-Dependent Questions?
All of the comprehension questions presented in Headsprout Reading Comprehension require that students reference the text to arrive at an answer. Students are taught to apply a five-step sequence to each question:- Read the passage carefully
- Read the question and the possible answers
- Identify which comprehension strategy is required to answer the question
- Look back in the passage and click on the sentence that provides the information (or a portion of the information) necessary to answer the question
- Answer the question. Headsprout Reading Comprehension teaches students to apply these steps to inferential, literal, main idea, and vocabulary questions, and many of these exercises include questions about text and illustrations that accompany the text.
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. Attend our free webinars every month in 2013. 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.
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 Headsprout Support Teaching Academic Vocabulary?
Students engage in several activities to determine the meanings of words and phrases in context in both Headsprout Early Reading and Headsprout Reading Comprehension.In Headsprout Early Reading, working with words, based on their meaning, is integrated into reading comprehension activities. For example, students develop understanding by reading sentences and selecting pictures that represent the meaning; reading passages and selecting pictures that represent the meaning (literal and inferential); reading sentences with missing words and choosing correct words to fill in the blank; reading sentences with multiple-choice text responses (often using new vocabulary words) and choosing the correct response. Working with words, based on their meaning and grammatical structure, is integrated into the context of sentence construction and meaning. For example, students construct meaning by creating their own sentence that is then animated to reflect the meaning of the sentence.
Headsprout Reading Comprehension extends this foundation and includes explicit instruction in both vocabulary words and strategies to derive the meaning of a word from its surrounding context. Vocabulary words are used throughout the program in multiple contexts, so students are exposed to and use the word multiple times. For example, a vocabulary word directly taught in one episode might be critical for answering a reading comprehension question in a later episode. Over 100 academic vocabulary words from different disciplines are directly taught and practiced throughout the program (e.g., prism, measure, preparation, legislative, government, federal, coastal, habitat, cycle, decompose).
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. Attend our free webinars every month in 2013. 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.
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 Headsprout Resources Support the New CCSS Assessments?
Technology-based progress-monitoring tools include performance reports specific to Early Reading and Reading Comprehension. Every time a student uses Headsprout, information about their correct responses, errors, hesitations, and number of clicks is collected and organized into performance reports. Reports are generated automatically from data collected as students interact with the program. Teachers can view reports for an individual student or for the entire group/class. Administrators can view reports at the student, class, school, or district level.Headsprout reading programs use a method of continuous, automated assessment in which the programs collect learner data as they work to master the programmatic segments and episodes. The program collects student performance data and adjusts the instruction on a moment-to-moment basis to ensure each learner receives the precise instruction needed to master a particular program component.
In Headsprout Early Reading, benchmark assessments provide the opportunity for teachers to evaluate oral reading rate from listening to students read aloud. Additionally, teachers receive information on how well students comprehended fundamental aspects of the stories. Teachers or interventionists can use the additional formative assessment data to make instructional decisions, including resetting students to particular episodes, delivering additional intervention resources, or assigning additional reading practice.
In Headsprout Reading Comprehension, students are assessed continuously as they work through program components. The questions are presented alongside passages, and the assessments produce reports describing how students performed across literal, inferential, main idea, and vocabulary questions. The program encourages students to examine the text and answer each question correctly on the first attempt. The reports that show student progress inform educators about how many questions students answered correctly on the first attempt.