TextProject founder Elfrieda (Freddy) Hiebert’s examination of assumptions in the Common Core State Standards regarding kindergarten instruction and the history of kindergarten text difficulty. Click to view the blog post at the Washington Post website in the Washington Post blog, The Answer Sheet.
The inclusion of kindergarten in the CCSS about text difficulty represents an implicit assumption about beginning reading that also requires consideration—that earlier is better. Does beginning reading in kindergarten truly ensure that high school graduates are better at reading the complex texts of careers and college? In this essay, I review research on both the explicit and implicit assumptions within the CCSS regarding formal reading instruction in kindergarten: the dumbing down of kindergarten texts and the pushing down of reading instruction to kindergarten.
A day at a zoo can be quite memorable for the zoo visitors. But what about the animals that live at the zoo?
Elfrieda (Freddy) Hiebert TextProject & University of California, Santa Cruz The English language has an incredibly rich vocabulary, and yet we use only about 2%… Read More »The 90-10 Rule of Vocabulary in Increasing Students’ Capacity for Complex Text
Beginning readers need substantial and consistent data about language they are learning.
Did you know students didn’t always have homework? Before the 1950’s teachers didn’t assign homework to elementary school kids. This is no longer the case now. In a 2008 survey, “77% students regardless of grade level, spend at least 30 minutes doing homework on a typical school day, while 45% reported spending at least an hour.” (MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: The Homework Experience, 2008). The question we ask in this TPFK is “Does homework help students learn? Are students getting the right amount of homework?”
Freddy adds contemporary benchmark books to those already identified by Jeanne Chall and the CCSS.
More SummerReads related materials that are available on TextProject.
Students from high and low socioeconomic homes have been found to make similar gains on reading during the school year (Alexander, Entwistle, & Olson, 2004). It’s what happens in the summer that contributes to a growing gap in low- and high-income students’ reading. During the summer, low-income children either fall or stagnate during the summer, while higher-income children continue to progress or maintain their reading levels. By fourth-grade, the accumulated differences over several summers are reflected in a significant gap between low- and high-income students.
The question at the heart of this booklet is whether time should be alloted during the school time for music education. Music is an important part of our lives, but how important is music education compared to language arts, math, science and social science?
