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7 Actions That Teachers Can Take Right Now:

Getting Ready For The New Assessments

Elfrieda H. Hiebert

TextProject &

University of California, Santa Cruz

1. Give Students’ Responsibility for Reading Texts

When%10!year%old%Amelia!Mary!Earhart!saw$her$first$plane$at$a$state%fair,%she%was%not%impressed.%"It$was$a$thing$of$rusty!wire%and%wood$and$looked$not$at$all$interesting,"*she*said.*It*wasn't*until!Earhart!attended&a&stunt!flying'exhibition,!almost'a'decade'later,'that$she$became$seriously$interested(in!aviation. "

2. Implement a Deliberate Vocabulary Program

3. Increase Reading Volume (Un)Homework: Reading popular but thematically related books

Genre/Theme

Shared Text

Third Grade

American Tall Tales

American Tall Tales (Mary Pope Osbourne)

•  Casey Jones: The story of a brave engineer (G. Rounds) •  The Morning the Sun Refused to Rise: An original Paul

Bunyan Tale (G. Rounds) •  Baloney (J. Sciezka) •  I was Born about 10,000 Years Ago: A tall tale (S.

Kellogg) •  John Henry: An American legend (E.J. Keats) •  Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett (S. Kellogg) •  Dona Flor: A tall tale about a giant woman with a great

big heart (P. Mora) •  Thunder Rose (J. Nolan)

Second Grade

Discovering Nature

The Raft (Jim LaMarche)

•  Fireflies (J. Brinckloe) •  Owl Moon (J. Yolen) •  Come on, Rain! (K. Hesse) •  When I Was Young In The Mountains (C. Rylant) •  Night in the Country (C. Rylant) •  Crab Moon (R. Horowitz) •  The Seashore Book (C. Zolotow) •  Whose Tracks are these? (J. Nail) •  Over in the Forest (M. Berkes) •  A Drop of Water (W. Wick) •  Water Dance (T. Locker)

4. Increase Students’ Exposure to Magazine Articles

Auks’ eggs are pointed at one end. !is shape lets the eggs roll in a circle if another animal tries to move them or if the wind blows hard. Because the eggs can roll in a circle, they do not roll o" the cli".

King penguins also do not build nests. Instead, they tuck their eggs into the folds of skin on their lower belly. !e eggs rest on their feet and stay warm in the cold arctic winds.

Some bird species also lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. Cuckoos get other birds to keep their eggs safe and to feed their babies.

Most birds build a new nest each year. Some use the same nest for several years but clean the nest a little each year. Eagles build huge platform nests that they use for several years. However di"erent they are, though, birds build nests that are just right for their families.

Bird Nestsvolume 1

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Most birds build nests, but all nests are not alike. !e most common bird nest is the kind made by robins. Robins build nests that look like cups. !ey make a frame of twigs and sticks and cover it with mud. When this is done, robins line their nest with #ne moss, feathers, and hair they #nd on the ground.

Barn swallows build nests of mud.

!ey make them in barns, close to the roof where it is safe. Sometimes several swallows build nests near one another.

Some birds build their nests in unusual ways. All birds use their beaks to help make their nests, but Tailorbirds use their beak as a needle to sew leaves together. Tailorbirds use threads they gather from the cotton in cotton plants.

Some birds don’t build nests at all. Some lay their eggs right on the ground or on a rocky cli". Auks are birds that lay their eggs on rocky cli"s near the sea.

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writing a lot easier. It’s easy to see how the “point” got into ballpoint pen. But why the ball? !at part is in the name because of the tip of a pen is round. !ere are also rooms that are called ballrooms. People hold balls in ballrooms but they aren’t the round kind.

Other words with ball have nothing to do with round. In these words, the “ball” part of the word is not even said the same as ball in baseball or meatball. Ballerina is not ball with “erina.” Ballerinas are dancers and the word has nothing to do with ball. A ballot is used by people to vote but it is not round. You don’t even say “ball” when you say the word ballot.

Whenever you see ball as part of a word, look carefully. Usually, the word has something to do with games and sports. But remember eyeballs, "reballs, and cannonballs. !ese balls may be round but they aren’t used in sports! Ballerina and ballot show that some words with “ball” have nothing to do with being round.

Putting Two Words Together

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A lot of sports that people play use balls. In basketball, players try to get a ball through a hoop. In baseball, players use a bat to hit a ball. In football, players throw a ball to get it close to the goal.

!ere are other words with “ball” that describe things that are round. But they are not balls with which you play a game. Meatballs are not used in any sport. But

they are great with spaghetti.Eyeballs help in playing sports. But there isn’t a sport

called eyeball where teams throw and catch eyeballs. You wouldn’t want to be in a game that uses "reballs. If you would ever see a "reball, you should get as far away as fast as you can. !en call 911 right away. You should also watch out if a cannonball is going to be "red. It is round but you don’t want to play with a cannonball. You especially do not want to catch a cannonball!

!ere are some words, though, that have ball in them but it has nothing to do with round. Ballpoint pens make

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5. Support Background Knowledge Through Planful Read-Alouds

MusicalInstruments

Orchestra: Acohesive group

of musicianswho play

together onvarious

instruments.

Solos andBands:

Solo: People playmusical instrumentsor sing on their own,within a song or asthe only musician.

Pianos and Guitarsare two instruments

that sound especiallygood as soloinstruments.

Band: Acohesive group of

musicians thatsing or play

various musicalinstruments

togetherSections of anorchestra are

grouped by howmusic is made

with theinstrument

String

Woodwind

Brass

Percussion

6. Increase Students’ Stamina by Reading Silently Goal: Increase the amount of “deliberate reading” (reading of instructionally appropriate texts) in classrooms by 10% per trimester of the school year.

Step 1: Get baseline data:

•  Establish the length of time that students are reading: 20 minutes daily

•  Establish the length of the “average” silent reading event: 4 minutes

Step 2: Set the goal (explicitly with students in grades 3 and above; implicitly with students in grades 2 and below)

•  Goal for trimester: 22 minutes reading a day, with the single event: 5 minutes

Step 3: Always keep a record of what you’ve learned from reading

0

5

10

15

20

25

1 2 3 4 5 6 78 9 10 11 12

Total Reading Longest Single Reading Event

Record of what I learned from reading: •  Fibonacci patterns (I read Blockhead)

and Patterns of Nature) •  Musicians (John’s Secret Dreams; Lives

of the Musicians)

7. Have “on our own” reading sessions

•  http://education.ky.gov/AA/items/Documents/K-PREP%20Sampler%202012%20RD%20gr4.pdf

•  http://www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/common-core-sample-questions/ela-grade-4.pdf

7 Actions That Teachers Can Take Right Now: Getting Ready For The New Assessments

1.  Give students’ responsibility for reading texts

2.  Implement a deliberate vocabulary program

3.  Increase reading volume

4.  Increase students’ exposure to magazine articles

5.  Support background knowledge through planful read-alouds

6.  Increase students’ stamina by reading silently

7.  Have “on our own” reading sessions

www.textproject.org

T he inclusion of a standard on text complexity represents the most unique of several distinguishing features of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)

for English Language Arts. By reading texts at ever-accelerating complexity levels over a school career, students are expected to be pro! cient with the texts of college and careers upon high school graduation. Teachers are working vigorously to identify how to best apply this standard to their daily classroom instruction.

However, in the frenzy over ensuring that classroom texts are complex enough, little attention has been paid to the contexts in which students’ reading of these complex texts will be assessed. A key distinction between assessment and instruction is what students are asked to do with texts.

In many elementary and even middle school classrooms, teachers read a new text aloud to students. In subsequent lessons, teachers often set the pace and content of students’ reading of texts. That isn’t going to happen during assessment. In the assessment context, students will need to read these texts on their own—an activity that existing evidence indicates is challenging for many students (Hiebert et al, 2010). Further, students must use evidence from what they have read to respond to questions and to write essays.

We can get a glimpse of the scope of this new challenge by examining the sample texts of the two new assessment consortia—Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). Table 1 provides a summary of time and task features of the assessments. Already at third grade, students are expected to spend considerable time reading on their own.

Assessment Texts: Much Harder?The presence of a new standard on text complexity raises the question of how much harder the assessment texts will be from the typical texts of classrooms. Figure 1 shows that assessment texts follow the quantitative progression of the CCSS staircase of text complexity. SBAC texts have slightly lower Lexiles than PARCC texts, but remember that the sample is small. The texts of both assessments have slightly higher Lexiles than those of core-reading texts (Scott Foresman’s Reading Street and Harcourt’s Storytown) but the Lexiles fall within the appropriate grade-band ranges in Appendix A of the CCSS.

Because of the strong relationship between vocabulary and compre-hension, pro! les of vocabulary in the assessment and instructional texts are also provided (see Figure 2). These pro! les convey an oft-overlooked feature of complex texts: core vocabulary accounts for most of the words in texts—typically 90% or more. The only case where the percentage of core vocabulary is less than 90%—SBAC Grades 6–8—involves informational text, but even here the percentage of core vocabulary is high (88%). For all other texts, whether assessment or instructional or grade 3 or 6, the percentage of core vocabulary is fairly consistent (92–94%).

The texts of Grades 3 and 6 of the core-reading program have similar levels of rare vocabulary as the assessment texts. Further, the vocabulary loads in the core-reading programs are similar in Grades 3 and 6. Most students can recognize the majority of words in texts, even by the end of second grade, but many are not automatic enough in recognizing words to sustain comprehension (Cummings et al, 2011). When third graders encounter rare vocabulary at the same rate as sixth graders, it’s a challenge to develop automaticity with vocabulary.

For the CCSS Assessments and Beyond:Develop Your Students’ Stamina

for Grappling with Complex Textsby Elfrieda H. Hiebert

Figure 1.Texts of Sample Assessments and Core Reading Programs Relative to Staircase of Text Complexity

Figure 2.Distribution of Core and Rare Vocabulary for Texts of Sample Assessments and Core Reading Programs

www.reading.org18 Reading Today October/November 2013

CORE STANDARDS

Table 1 gives information on the length of the assessment texts. Grade 3 assessment texts average 575 words, while Grade 6 texts average 675 words. Instructional texts average 950 (Grade 3) and 2,000 words (Grade 6). These differences in length can mean up to 27 more rare words for third graders and 93 more rare words for sixth graders in the average instructional text than in the average assessment text. With fewer total words and fewer rare words, it could even be argued that the assessment texts could present less of a challenge to students than instructional texts.

Tailoring Instruction for Student SuccessIn most cases core-reading texts are, in fact, complex enough for the majority of students—if not too complex. What are missing in many classrooms are not texts that contain an appropriate amount of complexity but rather the opportunities for students to be responsible for instructional texts and to read enough to be highly facile with these texts. What students aren’t learning is how to interact with challenging texts by themselves.

Teachers should not rush to remove all instructional scaffolds but they need to remember that scaffolds are intended to be temporary and steadily withdrawn. Students need to be instructed in how to handle texts on new topics with challenging vocabulary. They need to be instructed in monitoring their comprehension. How can teachers make this happen?

• Make students responsible for the ! rst reads of texts. This reading can occur in chunks, with teachers asking a purpose-setting question that requires students to ! nd evidence in text. What is important is that the chunks get bigger over a school year.

• Ensure that students reread critical parts of texts to demonstrate evidence for their interpretations. Ask students to read their evidence for the purpose-setting question to a partner, with pairs sharing their evidence.

• Conduct vocabulary lessons that uncover the critical vocabulary in texts prior to reading. A short lesson on Ojibwa vocabulary prior to reading The Birchbark House or Yorkshire dialect prior to reading The Secret Garden illustrates how to support students’ success when reading text on their own.

• Hold explicit conversations with students about the role of challenge in learning. Teachers need to draw students’ attention to their pro! ciency with the majority of the words in texts and the pace at which new, potentially unknown words are included. The patterns of rare vocabulary in text need to be made visible to students.

• Help students develop comprehension strategies to use when the task becomes dif! cult. The vast majority of students know the majority of words in texts. What students often lack are strategies for proceeding when they encounter unknown words.

Preparing students for contexts where they are responsible for texts is not about test preparation. Ensuring that students are continually increasing their stamina in reading and responding to text is as essential to college and career readiness as ensuring that texts increase in their complexity over students’ school careers.

ReferencesCummings, K.D., Kennedy, P.C., Otterstedt, J., Baker, S.K., & Kame’enui, E.J. (2011). DIBELS Data System: 2010-2011 Percentile Ranks for DIBELS Next Benchmark Assessments (Technical Report 1101). Eugene, OR: University of Oregon.

Hiebert, E.H., Wilson, K.M. & Trainin, G. (2010). Are students really reading in independent reading contexts? An examination of comprehension-based silent reading rate. In E.H. Hiebert & D. Ray Reutzel (Eds.), Revisiting Silent Reading: New Directions for Teachers and Researchers. Newark, DE. IRA.

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Of! cers. (2010). Common Core State Standards for English language arts and literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. Washington, DC: Authors.

Elfrieda H. Hiebert is president and CEO of TextProject, a California nonpro! t whose mission is to bring beginning and struggling readers to higher levels of literacy through a variety of strategies and tools, particularly for reading instruction. She is also a member of the Division of Social Sciences at the University of

California, Santa Cruz, hiebert@textproject.org.

Table 1.Contexts and Text Complexity of Assessments

PARCC SBAC

Number and Length of Sessions

End-of-Year: 60 min. x 2 sessions (Gr. 3) to 70 min. x 2 sessions (Grs. 9–11)

Performance:40–60 min. per task (Gr. 3) to 50–85 min. per task (Grs. 9–11)

Computer Adaptive Testing: 1 hr. 45 min. (Grs. 3–8) to 2 hr. (Grs. 9–11)

Performance: 105 min. (Grs. 3–8) to 120 min. (Grs. 9–11)

Text Length 200–800 words (Grs. 3–5); 400–1000 words (Grs. 6–8)

500–1500 words (Grs. 9–11)

650 words (Gr. 3)

750 words(Grs. 4–5)

950 words (Grs. 6–8)

1100 words (Grs. 9–11)

Summarized from K. Wixson (April 19, 2013). Assessment and instruction in the era of the CCSS in English Language Arts. Presentation given at the Preconvention Institute “Assessment in the Era of the Common Core.” San Antonio, TX. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwIychIT3ICgqScYP0LWMspjk1B_VqcGC

19www.reading.org October/November 2013 Reading Today