Pearson Instructional Programs
and the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts
A timeline of concurrent development
Common Core Goals
The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects were developed under the auspices of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) in 2009 and 2010. The stated goals of the standards are to (1) to bring about real and meaningful transformation of our educational system to benefit all students 1 and (2) to bring focus, coherence, and rigor (as evidence-based design principles) to K-12 literacy instruction. 2
Across the nation, the adoption of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts represents a significant foundational change in K-12 instruction. Standards by themselves cannot raise achievement. 3 The alignment of instructional materials to the standards is one critical success factor. Two other critical factors are professional development for teachers as they grapple with new content and new expectations of students, and the creation of valid and reliable testing instruments that track individual students’ progress against the standards. Only success in these three areas will guarantee that all U.S. students acquire the critical concepts and skills necessary to succeed in college and in their careers, regardless of the state or district they live in, or the school they attend.
Three Key Pillars
These pillars form the foundation of a successful implementation of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts:
1) Research-based, Common Core Standards-aligned, instructional materials that are proven effective;
2) Transitional support and professional development, including new teaching strategies; and
3) Data-driven reporting and progress monitoring tools to assist with new summative assessment requirements.
Individually, any one of these three pillars would be a challenge to implement. Collectively, the task of simultaneous implementation is daunting to most school districts.
Publishers’ Criteria
With respect to instructional materials, the release by the CCSSO and the NGA Center of the K-12 Publishers’ Criteria for the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and Literacy represents a welcome guideline for both publishers and school districts. It focuses not only the shifts that must take place in literacy curricula, but contains a comprehensive discussion of criteria for evaluating materials to ensure that teachers receive effective materials. Key Common Core shifts in English Language Arts/Literacy focused on in the criteria are:
1. Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction;
2. Reading, writing and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational;
3.Regular practice with complex text and its academic language. 4
Over the coming months, we at Pearson look forward to the release of a full range of assessment items from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). We continue to listen carefully to individual districts as each defines the nature of professional development it seeks.
Documentation around the CCSS for English Language Arts and Literacy
Since the release of the first public draft of the CCSS for English Language Arts and Literacy, there have been continuing and numerous releases of supporting and interpretive documents, including exemplars, content frameworks, and suggested review criteria.
Timeline of “official” and not-so-official Common Core documents already released:
· March 2010: Draft for review of Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts
· June 2010: Release of Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects)
· June 2010: Appendices A, B, and C: Research Supporting Key Elements of the Standards and a Glossary of Key Terms (Appendix A); Text Exemplars and Sample Performance Tasks (Appendix B); Samples of Student Writing (Appendix C)
· Summer 2011: K-2 and 3-12 Publishers’ Criteria for the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts released
· August 2011: Draft PARCC Model Content Frameworks for English Language Arts for the Summative Assessment of he CCSS for English Language Arts
· August 2011: Draft SBAC Content Specifications with Content Mapping
· Fall 2011: PARCC Model Content Frameworks for English Language Arts—Response to public feedback
· Fall 2011: Revised K-2 and 3-12 Publishers’ Criteria for the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts released
· December 2011: Measures of Text Difficulty (Nelson, Perfetti, Liben, Liben) released
· April 2012: Revised K-2 and 3-12 Publishers’ Criteria for the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts released
· Spring 2012: selected SBAC sample items released
· April 2012: SBAC Item Specifications (and specifications for all item types on SBAC’s ELA test) released
· May 2012: Revised K-2 and 3-12 Publishers’ Criteria for the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts released
· August 2012: Supplement to Appendix A
Each of these releases has generated vigorous discussion of the interpretations, suggestions, and assumptions contained therein. All of this is healthy and necessary to bring the country to a common understanding of the objectives of the Common Core standards. There is no reason to expect that future releases of guidelines, samples, etc., will be any different.
Expected future releases:
· Ongoing: Revised K-8 Publishers’ Criteria
· Revised PARCC Model Content Frameworks (to be released in Fall 2012)
· Sample assessment items (PARCC)
· Assessment blueprints (PARCC)
· Sample Speaking and Listening assessment items (PARCC is proposing a separate Speaking and Listening test)
· More sample assessment items (SBAC)
Pearson’s Instructional Materials
Pearson provides comprehensive, flexible K-12 literacy programs designed for a variety of instructional models, including whole class direct instruction, small group work, and individually paced learning. These include Reading Street (K-6), Good Habits, Great Readers (K-6), Prentice Hall Literature (6–12) and Reader’s Journey (6-12).
Pearson Authors
The author teams for these programs include many thought leaders and contributors to both the literacy foundations for the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy and development of those standards. Below is a partial description of their influential work.
• Dr. Karen Kring Wixson is Dean of the School of Education at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Previously, she was Professor of Education at the University of Michigan where she served as Dean from 1998-2005.
Dr. Wixson has published widely in the areas of literacy curriculum, instruction, and assessment in books and journals. These include Reading Research Quarterly, The Reading Teacher, Elementary School Journal, Review of Research in Education, and the Handbook of Reading Research. Dr. Wixson’s research on developing content knowledge through coherently structured units of instruction that utilize a high percentage of nonfiction texts provided a key piece of the foundation for the Reading Street framework. 5 As a result of Dr. Wixson’s research and input, Reading Street has, since ©2007, addressed the requirements set forth in the CCSS that students who are college and career ready build strong content knowledge by reading significantly more informational text.
Dr. Wixson was involved in the development of the CCSS as a member of the Extended Work Team. She also served as a member of the team that developed the CCSS approach to text complexity. In addition, Dr. Wixson is leading a project for the NAEP Validity Studies Panel to examine the alignment of the NAEP Reading and Writing Assessments to the CCSS. Dr. Wixson has been selected to join the International Reading Association’s newly formed Literacy Research Panel. The panel, chaired by Dr. P. David Pearson (University of California at Berkeley), will respond to critical literacy issues facing policymakers, school administrators, teacher educators, classroom teachers, parents and the general public. Dr. Wixson is an author for Reading Street and Prentice Hall Literature.
• Dr. Peter Afflerbach is Professor of Reading in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Dr. Afflerbach’s research focuses on reading assessment, reading comprehension strategies, and the verbal reporting methodology.His most recent work addresses aspects of individual differences in reading development, including motivation and engagement, metacognition, student self-efficacy and self-concept, and epistemic beliefs. 6Dr. Afflerbach’s research led to the development of the units of instruction in Reading Street that are built around science and social studies concepts that develop a knowledge base for the curricular areas. This pedagogical structure embraces the interdisciplinary approach to literacy instruction put forth by the CCSS.
Dr. Afflerbach was a member of the Feedback Committee for the Common Core State Standards/English Language Arts and Initial Review Panel charged with reading and responding to the first and second draft of the standards. He is currently working with Drs. Karen K. Wixson and P. David Pearson to compare the alignment of the CCSS with NAEP. He is also heading an effort by the International Reading Association to author a position statement on formative assessment and its relation to the CCSS. Dr. Afflerbach is an author of Reading Street.
• Dr. P. David Pearson is Professor of Language and Literacy in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Pearson’s research on multiple readings of complex texts, text complexity, and the gradual release model provided the framework for comprehension instruction in Reading Street. 7 Gradual release from teacher to student has been a hallmark of Reading Street pedagogy since the 2007 copyright. In addition, Dr. Pearson’s work on text complexity and multiple readings of complex text provided the foundation for the revision to core reading and comprehension instruction for Reading Street ©2011. The gradual-release model, the issues of text complexity, and multiple readings of complex text are critical in providing instruction that decreases scaffolding and increases independence and in developing students who can read complex texts proficiently and independently as required by the CCSS.
Dr. Pearson served on the Validation Committee created by the Council of Chief State School Officers to review, provide feedback, and revise various drafts of the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics. Dr. Pearson received a grant from the Gates Foundation to develop a research base underlying the indicators of text complexity that are used to scale text difficulty for the CCSS. This led to an analysis of the relative contributions of competing approaches to gauging text complexity. Dr. Pearson is currently working with Drs. Karen K. Wixson and Peter Afflerbach on a project analyzing the degree of congruency between the CCSS for English Language Arts and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Dr. Pearson is an author of Reading Street.
• Dr. Donald J. Leu is the John and Maria Neag Endowed Chair in Literacy and Technology at the University of Connecticut, Neag School of Education. He directs the New Literacies Research Lab and is a Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Psychology.
Dr. Leu’s current research is focused on the new literacies of online reading comprehension. 8 This research led to the development of the Research and Inquiry instructional strand in Reading Street. The activities involved in the Research and Inquiry strand require students to read complex informational texts, provide evidence to support their views, and use digital reference materials, technology, and digital media. These key instructional requirements of the CCSS foster independent reading of complex texts for research purposes and require students to use text-based evidence to develop and support a position.
Dr. Leu served as an advisor for the Common Core State Standards Initiative in English Language Arts. Dr. Leu is an author for Reading Street and Prentice Hall Literature.
• Dr. Elfrieda “Freddy” Hiebert is the President and CEO of TextProject, Inc., and a teacher-educator and researcher. She has served on faculties at the University of Kentucky, University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Michigan, and the University of California at Berkeley. Her research is focused on fostering fluency, vocabulary, and knowledge acquisition through appropriate texts. Dr. Hiebert’s current research is on text complexity.
Dr. Hiebert’s research in vocabulary was a critical component in the development of academic vocabulary in Reading Street ©2007. Her focus on vocabulary to inform instruction was instrumental in developing the academic/domain-specific vocabulary strand. 9 Dr. Hiebert is a consultant for Pearson literacy programs.
• Dr. Camille Blachowicz is a Research Professor at the National College of Education, National-Louis University. She is the director of the Reading Program and Reading Center.
Dr. Blachowicz’s work centers on developing comprehensive school-wide approaches to vocabulary development and research-based vocabulary instruction for educators. In addition, her research is focused on building content vocabulary across grades and across the curriculum.10 Dr. Blachowicz was instrumental in the development of the vocabulary instructional strands in Reading Street, including concept vocabulary and academic/domain-specific vocabulary. Reading Street vocabulary instruction is based on the three-tier model developed by Beck, McKeown, and Kucan. Vocabulary instruction in Reading Street provides multiple exposures to a word in a variety of contexts, including reading, writing, and discussion. This instruction addresses an important instructional requirement of the CCSS that students “build rich and flexible word knowledge” and that they have myriad opportunities to use words in a variety of activities. In addition, instruction in Tier Two and Tier Three words provides students with access to more complex texts.
Dr. Blachowicz is currently involved in developing a multifaceted, comprehensive vocabulary instructional program for upper elementary grades. Dr. Blachowicz is an author of Reading Street.
• Dr. Jeanne R. Paratore is a Professor at Boston University where she coordinates the programs in Literacy Education and Reading Education and directs the Reading and Writing Clinic.
Dr. Paratore’s research and areas of expertise are focused on intervention, professional development, small group instruction, close reading, and multiple readings of a text.11-12 Her work resulted in significant contributions to the core reading strand and small group instruction in Reading Street. Specifically, her research and clinical experience were instrumental in the development of the close reading and repeated readings of texts in whole and small groups to improve comprehension, build reading stamina, and foster independent reading. Dr. Paratore’s contributions to Reading Street anticipated the CCSS requirements that students read more complex texts to build comprehension and reading stamina.