Reading and Writing
Best Practices
According to the authors of Best Practice...
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards says that highly qualified reading teachers
- explicitly teach reading strategies - tap students' curiosity and motivation
- create a climate of collaboration - invite students to make connections between texts - promote close readings of texts and their own life experiences
Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Reading
Key Ideas and Details
1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
Craft and Structure
4. Interpret phrases and words as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.
6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.
8. Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.
9. Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
10. Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.
The CCSS do not instruct educators on how to teach writing...
What these standards don't address, and what teachers can productively focus on, is the work of actually leading students to learn and produce good writing, and to carry their skills forward for "college and career readiness" - which is standards' stated goal.
Best Practices for teaching writing...
Instructing students on planning, revising, and editing compositions
Engaging students in prewriting activities
Conducting inquiry activities that lead to writing
Having students write collaboratively
Having students read models for writing
Using writing for learning content
All children can and should write
Help students find real purposes to write and real audiences to reach
Help students exercise choice, take ownership, and assume responsibility
Provide opportunities for students to experience the complete writing process
Help students get started
Guide students as they draft and revise
Show students how writing is created
Lead students to learn the craft of writing
Confer with individual students on their writing
Teach grammar and mechanics in the context of actual writing
Provide a classroom context of shared learning- students sharing their work out loud in a supportive classroom.
Using writing to support learning throughout the curriculum
Use evaluation constructively and efficiently