Angie Moehlmann's List: Common Core

• A focus on developing comprehension skills needs to take its place alongside phonics in the teaching of reading in the early grades. A greater emphasis on history and science texts and on informational texts at all grade levels must become commonplace. Close reading and rereading should be part of every student's daily practice.

• In the past, the usual practice was to read a text thoroughly a single time in a guided or directed reading lesson. However, the new standards require something different—that students read more challenging texts and engage in "close reading" lessons, in which rereading is a hallmark. Although it may have made sense to thoroughly prepare students to get everything they could from a text they were going to read a single time, that kind of preparation isn't as necessary if students will be going back to the well two or three times.
• No matter the order, however, the new standards require as much early emphasis on decoding and fluency as in the recent past, and claims to the contrary are no more than myths.

• For example, students will need to spend more time reading informational texts—but in their science and history classes. Teachers in these content areas will now need to play a larger role in teaching the literacy of those subjects (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008).

   

  But English teachers don't need to stop teaching literature. The majority of texts students will study in English classes will still be novels, short stories, poems, and plays.
• • Key concept here for PD-teachers need PD, instructional materials, and supervision.
    
• Reading lessons will need to shift away from an emphasis on prereading to greater attention to rereading and follow up. Because texts will be considerably harder, teachers will not only need to become more adept at motivating students to read but also more adept at teaching students to handle the rigors of demanding text without telling them what the texts say (Shanahan, Fisher, & Frey, 2012). There will need to be a greater emphasis on history and science texts in the upper grades and on informational texts at all grade levels.
• writing instruction will need to focus more on writing about the ideas in texts and less on just putting personal thoughts into words. At the same time, reading will involve more critical analysis and synthesis of information from multiple texts. Each one of these changes is considerable and will require better and more appropriate professional development, instructional materials, and supervision.

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