RTI and the Common Core

A Compilation of Resources for All Students Within the Three Tiers of Instruction

“Realizing Opportunities for English Learners in the Common Core English Language Arts and Disciplinary Literacy Standards”, George C. Bunch, University of California, Santa Cruz, Amanda Kibler, University of Virginia, Susan Pimentel, StandardsWork®, 2012

ELL components of a high achievement ELA program for each and every student requires regular and intensive practice to:

1.Secure Foundational Skills in K-3: Solidifying and strengthening foundational skills of reading, writing, speaking, listening and language. This will provide the platform for independent reading success for every student.

2.Develop Academic Language: Ensuring that all students are proficient with academic language, including complex sentence structures and academic vocabulary expressed orally and in writing.

3. Engage in Word Study: Developing a systematic approach to K-12 word study, going beyond the meaning of words to a close study of their spelling, pronunciation and structure. Closely related to text complexity—and inextricably connected to reading comprehension—is a focus on academic vocabulary: words that appear in a variety of content areas (such as ignite, combine and causal). An effective word study program raises students’ awareness of the power and beauty of words.

4.Reading Fluency: Ensuring that all students read grade level complex text with appropriate rate, expression and accuracy based on type of text and purpose. This focus must include awareness that fluency can be a possible cause of difficulty at any given grade, not just in the early grades.

5.Reading aloud complex text to build knowledge: Systematic and frequent read alouds with texts that are rich and beyond grade level in complexity is an imperative in the foundational grades (K-3). Texts read aloud—especially in the early grades—must contain more complex vocabulary and syntax than texts students can read independently. The focus should be on asking text dependent questions and including repeated oral readings of difficult sections in order to develop strong aural comprehension, enhance knowledge, and support learning of academic words and complex syntax.

6.Close Analytic Reading: Frequent teacher-led, close reading of rich complex texts must be a regular part of student experience. This means emphasizing questions that can only be determined from the text and which combine focused word study and attention to syntax with writing, listening and speaking about text in order to develop deep understanding. This regular practice in analytic reading will build student capacity to read carefully and independently.

7.Volume of Accountable Student Reading: Radically increasing the volume of text students read. In order to develop a rich and essential store of word and background knowledge, students must read more and be held accountable for doing so. The means should include: increasing the amount of reading in the content areas; independent reading programs; literature studies; reading multiple texts of increasing difficulty about one topic; and any other means that increases accountable student reading.

8.Evidence Based Writing and Speaking: Regular and systematic evidence based writing and speaking from sources integrated across the curriculum. Shifting from an emphasis on narrative writing and speaking about self to placing a premium on students writing and speaking to sources: using evidence from texts to present careful analyses, well-defended claims, and clear information. Students must learn to work together, express and listen carefully to ideas, integrate information from oral, visual, quantitative, and media sources, evaluate what they hear, use media and visual displays strategically to help achieve communicative purposes, and adapt speech to context and task.

A consideration of students’ second language proficiency, literacy backgrounds, and background knowledge can also inform instructional efforts to enhance the strategic moves students can apply to engage successfully in independent reading across the curriculum—especially when called upon to read texts beyond their English language proficiency levels.

Such instruction can do the following:

• Induce readers to consider (or even research) the topic at hand using more accessible texts (including those in a students’ L1 for ELs who read in their first languages) in preparation for reading more difficult texts as part of the same lesson or unit.

• Assist readers in deciding which words in a given text are critical for particular uses of the text and which can be skipped.

• Focus readers’ attention on meaning-critical grammatical structures (and how those might compare with how grammar is used to make similar meaning in students’ first languages).

• Build on and expand readers’ knowledge about how different kinds of texts are structured.

• Focus readers’ attention on specific features of text complexity by choosing authentic and original texts that emphasize one or two features at a time (such as a linguistically more accessible text that features multiple meanings, a lexically dense piece with a simpler grammatical structure, or a text in the students’ native language that includes the challenging text structures of an unfamiliar genre).

• Integrate a focus on vocabulary-building with meaningful activities centered around texts.

Several instructional strategies hold promise for ELs in meeting the Writing Standards. Overall, such strategies focus on developing what is called for by the Standards (e.g. writing different text types for different audiences and purposes and presenting knowledge gained through research) rather than ELs’ production of mechanically and grammatically “flawless” writing.

Accordingly, writing instruction can do the following:

• Maximize the use of ELs’ existing linguistic and cultural resources by ensuring that students have meaningful ideas to write about, allowing them to use their home languages or varieties of language during the writing process, employing technology that students already use, and drawing upon their background knowledge, practices, and experiences.

• Provide ELs with meaningful exposure to the types of texts they will be writing, guiding students through the linguistic and rhetorical patterns found in different genres.

• Ensure that writing instruction creates meaningful opportunities to communicate rather than mechanical exercises for text production. These opportunities include interactions with peers and teachers about ELs’ writing and sensitive yet substantive feedback about the content of their writing at multiple points throughout the writing process.

In relation to research skills specifically, instruction can:

• Encourage students with L1 literacy backgrounds to draw upon this resource to help themlocate, evaluate, and analyze information.

• Assist students in selecting reading and drafting strategies appropriate for varied research tasks.

• Provide explicit guidance on the conventions of textual ownership and citations in U.S. academic settings, alongside clear yet critical explanations of the purposes these conventions serve.

• Create opportunities that allow ELs to learn research processes by participating in teacher guided and collaborative endeavors before attempting research independently.

For ELs to realize opportunities presented by the Listening and Speaking Standards, teachers across the curriculum can support students by offering a wide variety of classroom discourse structures. Many of the interactive structures conducive to building knowledge and discussing ideas also hold promise for language development.

Teachers can do the following:

• Engage students in individual, small group, and whole-class discussions that move beyond traditional initiation-response-evaluation structures to “bridging discourses” that encourage ELs to produce extended oral discourse and engage with academic registers.

• Develop collaborative tasks that require effective and linguistically rich discussions.

• Allow ELs to collaborate in their home languages as they work on tasks to be completed in English

• Teach ELs strategies for using their still-developing English language proficiency to engage in different communicative modes. For example, listening comprehension activities can help ELs to “arrive successfully at a reasonable interpretation of extended discourse,” rather than to process every word literally, which is impossible even for native English speakers to do.

“The Common Core State Standards and Reading: Interpretations and

Implications for Elementary Students with Learning Disabilities”

Diane Haager, California State University, Los Angeles

Sharon Vaughn, 2013

GUIDELINES FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS K-5 CCSS:

Special education teachers willneed to develop a thorough understanding of the K-5 CCSS inorder to facilitate access for students with disabilities within general education classroom, to assist classroom teachers in making appropriate adaptations and accommodations, and to design interventions that best prepare students to achieve competency across a wide range of literacy skills. Following are suggestions to keep in mind as schools move forward with implementation of the standards framework.

  1. Develop a thorough understanding of the grade-level expectations and general education curriculum and determine needed adjustments for students with learning disabilities.
  2. Seek out professional developmentthat will provide the depth of knowledge you will needto advocate for your students as they access generaleducation instruction. You will also need this knowledgebase to design your specialized instruction tomeet students’ standards-based IEP goals.
  3. Considerwhether students are provided adequate opportunitiesfor intensive interventions in reading to promote theiraccess to both foundation skills as well as text-basedcomprehension.
  4. Establish a plan in collaboration with general education teachers and other professionals to ensure appropriate instruction for students with LD. The best way to ensure that your students will have access to the challenging standards is to establish a concrete plan for how and when students with disabilities will be included in general education English Language Arts instruction and what they may need beyond that.
  5. Advocate for time to collaborate with your generaleducation colleagues to make an initial plan as wellas structured ongoing planning time and procedures for assuring that students are provided the specific andintensive interventions needed as well as the appropriatedifferentiated instruction required
  6. Use the K-5 CCSS in Foundational Skills toguide small-group instruction to meet students’individualized needs. Use appropriate assessmenttools to identify your students’ specific needs withinthe Foundational Skills and group students strategicallyto provide targeted skills-based instruction.As you examine students’ data, use the FoundationalSkills standards as a guide in selecting curricular materialsand lesson planning. Teach toward mastery ofthe needed skills.
  7. Provide opportunities for guided practice in integratedlessons. Your students are likely to experienceEnglish Language Arts lesson that are multifacetedand integrate several skills within the context of aparticular lesson focus. These lessons will more ofteninvolve informational text from science, socialstudies or other technical subjects and are likely topromote problem-solving and higher-order thinkingskills. Students with LD will more often be requiredto produce complex written or oral responses to text.It may be beneficial for your students to provide themwith opportunities to practice the types of listening,speaking, reading and writing activities they will encounter in the general education environment, usingtext that is at an accessible level. This may representa divergence from “business as usual” special educationinstruction that is often solely targeted on isolatedskills.

GUIDELINES FOR GENERAL EDUCATION TEACHERS

  1. Maintain a focus on continuing high impact practices associated with improved reading outcomes in Tier 1 and Tier 2 instruction. Assure that the effective practices you are currently implementing that are effective for Tier 1 instruction as well as for intervention (Tier 2) are continued. Many of the essential foundationskills in reading (e.g., phonics, fluency, vocabulary)that have been previously addressed are maintainedin the K-5 CCSS and can be emphasized.
  2. Provide all students with appropriate instruction so that you minimize skills gaps for students who may later be assessed and placed into special education. Students with LD are often identified beyond the primary grades, but their need for supplemental support modes of presenting are some of the research-based ways that general education teachers generally provide options for students.
  3. Provide students with a range of text types to assure students spend adequate time reading texts that they can read successfully. While high level texts for each grade are required and examples of such are provided, students with learning disabilities will not make adequate progress in reading unless they have ample opportunity to read passages that they can read successfully. This means that while students with LD, are likely to be expected to read very difficult passages with support from their teacher, they will also need adequate time to read passages at their reading level.

Range and Complexity of Text Reading for Students with Learning Disabilities

  1. Provide texts for students to read that represent a range of genres.The common core requires students to acquire reading proficiency in a range of literary genres, poetry, and access to knowledge throughinformation texts.
  2. Select texts for students to read that represent a range of reading levels including reading levels above grade level.Students are expected to read texts that are on their grade level and above. Students with reading disabilities will require opportunities to read textthey can read successfully. This is likely to mean off-level text. Additionally, when required to read text that is too difficult for them, teachers can promote their access to this difficult text by:
  3. Reading the segment aloud first and then asking them to read,
  4. Pre-teaching difficult words and reading the sentences with these words with the student before they read the passage, and
  5. Providing a better reader to support their reading.
  6. Select Texts that support learning in social studies and science. Students are expected to have opportunities to read texts that cut across genres including narrative, story, poetry and also information text that relates to building background knowledge and academic vocabulary. Special education teachers can support implementation of the common core standards by selecting science and social studies texts that align with the knowledge being taught in these content areas and using these as sources for students’ reading.
  7. Select Texts that support Tier 2 vocabulary development and academic vocabulary. Tier 2 words are words that are important, useful in the immediate future to read and understand text, require instruction to learn, and will help the student understand the concept or idea in the text.
  8. Encourage students to ask questions and respond to questions while reading.Ask students to read a designated sentence or passage. Select the length of text to be relatively brief initially and then longer as the students’ reading skills develop. Ask students a question about an idea from the text and a question about a detail from the text. Support students in locating the words or sentences from text that support their answer.
  9. Teach students to develop questions related to text.A critical element of successful reading involves learning how to use text as a source for answering questions. As students advance as readers, they are also expected to use text as a source for asking questions. Most experienced teachers recognize that learning to formulate a question related to text is difficult for many students and will be particularly challenging for students in second and third grades.
  10. Provide students with opportunities to identify the main characters in the story and to discuss what they know about the characters.Students are likely to encounter characters in both information and narrative texts. Initially, students can learn to tell the main character and later to describe the character. Be sure to encourage students to use the text as support for their answers about the character.
  11. Read texts that give students opportunities to determine characters’ responses to events and challenges.Through both teacher read-alouds and student independent reading, assure students encounter texts that include characters who are responding to critical events and life challenges. Ask students to identify the challenge or event. Ask them to use text as a source to describe how the characterresponded. Use graphic organizers to demonstrate who the main characters are, what the challenge is, and how each character responded to thechallenge.
  12. Read texts that describe or imply characters’ traits, motivations, and feeling.Ask students to describe the “traits” of characters in their texts. Encourage them to find the words in the text that explicitly tell them about a character. Also, guide them to locate words that “infer” traits about a character. Learning more about characters also means learning about their motivations and intentions. Encourage students to consider what the character is trying to accomplish. Ask students if they can determine the characters’ goals. Graphic organizers are available focusing on characters.
  13. Describe and Compare and Contrast characters, settings or events from text.When students read information text they have many opportunities to describe in detail the settings or events that are relevant to understanding the text. For example, using the text as a source to answer such questions as:

(a) What details are used to describe the setting and how does this influence the action in the story?