Common Core State Standards: Elementary School (14:11)
Rafael Pi Roman: Welcome to education update. I’m Rafael Pi Roman. Elementary school is the first chapter of our children’s education. Where they learn their ABC’s and 123’s: skills they will use for the rest of their lives. But how and when children learn these skills depends on which state they live in. Now for the first time students in over 40 states will learn from the same set of expectations: the new common core state standards for English and math. In this episode we’ll take a look at what can be learned from teachers at two elementary schools in New York City who have already begun working with the common core standards as part of a pilot program here.
Angela O’Dowd is the principal of P.S. 62, an elementary school with about 1,000 students in Queens, New York. Her teachers have started to work with a new common core of state standards for English Language Arts and literacy.
Kim Olino: So this morning we’re going to be doing some work together based on our author study of Chris Van Allsburg. And to think about not just his characters in the story but thinking about them beyond the story.
Rafael Pi Roman: Today 4th grade teacher Kim Olino is trying out a new test she designed with other teachers at P.S. 62 which asks the kids to make observations and inferences about the characters in their books and then impersonate them in their very own talk show.
Kim Olino: What you want to try to do is make sure that you actually have some evidence to base that on.”
Students: So when we were walking back were you scared to tell Mrs. (inaudible) that you didn’t have (inaudible)?
Yes because my heart was pounding and I didn’t know how she would take the news.
Kim Olino: So that’s good that you’re really using the text to help you to get organizedwith your ideas.
It really gives them the opportunity to use the evidence but make those inferences that we’re trying to really help them to do. To really think about the text beyond just what’s on the page.
Rafael Pi Roman: Responding to text is the central focus of the common core state standards for English Language Arts and literacy. Each section begins with college and career readiness anchor standards: broad expectations of what kids should know and be able to do. The anchor standards remain the same throughout all grades and correspond one to one with the content standards in each strand. The K-5 strands include reading, writing, language and speaking and listening which requires kids to engage in collaborative discussions and pose and answer questions.
Students: (Inaudible) Did you ever regret making your neighbors go away and why?
No I didn’t regret it because they were always not minding their business and I already had friends who were helping me so I wasn’t really lonely.
Rafael Pi Roman: Olino takes notes on how the kids do with a task which she’ll share later with her colleagues.
Students: Tune in next time for the next episode of the Chris Van Allsburg show. Goodbye and have a great day.
Rafael Pi Roman: The common core contains reading standards not just for literature but also for informational text which should account for about half of all reading by 4th grade. The writers say this is key for preparing students for the type of reading they’ll need to do later in life.
Angela O’Dowd: I think we’re doing the most important work and you might think of career and college readiness being heavily impacted at the high school level but think about it: the foundations are kindergarten to second grade.”
Rafael Pi Roman: These foundations are especially important for P.S. 62’s English language learners. There are students here from over twenty countries including India, Bangladesh and the Dominican Republic.
Dalia Delghavi: I want you to take a good look at this picture okay? Get a good question in your head.
Rafael Pi Roman: The standards don’t contain a special section for these children but ESL teacher Dalia Delghavi thinks they give her the room to support the kids in the ways they need.
Dalia Delghavi: The standards are for everyone but with an English language learner they’re expected to work at the same pace as everyone else so what I do is scaffold for them or kind of support them in getting to that.
Students: Why do the ants go on the trees?
Dalia Delghavi: Why do the ants walk on the tree?
Students: Because their home is on the tree.
Dalia Delghavi: Okay.
Rafael Pi Roman: Today’s lesson involves the speaking and listening and the language standards which call for using correct grammar and vocabulary, working collaboratively and asking good questions.
Students: Which color is it?
Brown.
This is brown.
No that’s not brown. That’s black.
Dalia Delghavi: Questioning like this, finding out important information is going to help them wherever they go in their life and their career.
Rafael Pi Roman: The common core standards weave the use of technology into almost every strand. It’s something Principal O’Dowd has also tried to weave into all instruction at P.S. 62 including the instruction of her teachers.
Angela O’Dowd: We’re ready to ask the question what does a common core classroom look like?
Rafael Pi Roman: Today at the regular meeting teachers are challenged to identify which common core standards are being used by their colleagues who’s classes werefilmed on a flip cam.
Teacher: So boys and girls we’re going to read this story today to make some predictions. What does Timothy Pope think he sees?
Students: A shark!
Teacher: Why? Who are those people? Notice the language and the words that I’m using. What do you think these two words have in common? And oh my goodness is that another W word, WH word? What? If you agree can we put that up here?
Students: Yes!
Teacher: Okay. I want us to look at poetry and see if we can make some really good inferences while we read.
Rafael Pi Roman: Most of the teachers identify this instruction as following the first anchor standard for reading which requires students to read text closely, make inferences and cite textual evidence.
Teacher: In the first video there was clear prompting and she was asking the kids to come up with their own evidence. Then we went on to second grade so you actually had the who, the what, the where, the when, why which is stated in the standard and we can actually see how that grew and changed when we went to fifth grade where there was much more inferencing and the kids were actually using the evidence and the text to support.
Angela O’Dowd: One of the things that struck me was how the complexity of the text really varied from the picture book minimal text, repetitive text, clear pictures through to the more factual but just denser, some vocabulary that they didn’t know through to that much more abstract piece of writing, the poem at the end.
Teacher: I really liked that we used videos in this because I know back in July when I first started I thought this was a big scary thing and even though I have been doing this for months and it’s become less scary.
Rafael Pi Roman: Making these changes less scary especially for schools that have not have yet begun working with the common core is a key goal for Ben Grossman: a common core specialist with the New York City schools.
Ben Grossman: They don’t know what to expect. They don’t know what it means. There is still some anxiety because they have raised the bar.
Rafael Pi Roman: But, Grossman says, schools should know that adopting the common core doesn’t mean having to start all over again.
Ben Grossman: I mean one of the things I’m careful to say and it’s true, I don’t make this up: that 90% of what they’re asking for is already happening in classrooms. So they’ve given us an opportunity to look carefully at what is happening in classrooms and a framework for how to think about that in an intentional way. I think some teachers have a hard time with that and some teachers are not interested in that and some principals aren’t interested in that. So it’s partly my job to be a bit of a salesman.”
Rafael Pi Roman: The principals and teachers at P.S. 62 and P.S. 124 don’t need any convincing about the common core. But they say what they do need is plenty of time, money and support in the coming years to ensure implementation is successful. Principal Martinez advised that teachers and principals across the country take the time to understand the new standards and involve parents in the process. Because in the end she believes it will all be worth it.
Annabell Martinez: I think the common core standards that they unify in theme for the whole country. And I think it’s going to bring teachers even across districts and across schools together. I mean everybody, this is it.