Common Core - ELA/Literacy
Common Core Science A-Z Correlations to Meet ELA/Literacy Standards
Science A-Z provides correlations to the Common Core State Standards for English language arts and literacy in content areas. These connections make it easy for you to see how Science A-Z resources can help you meet ELA/Literacy standards related to reading, writing, and content-area literacy.
Use the Resource Correlations tool to find Common Core-aligned resources from Science A-Z, Reading A-Z, the ELL Edition, or Writing A-Z — or view all correlated resources at once. We have also provided information on key CCSS topics, why they are important, and how Science A-Z can be used to implement elements of CCSS.
Resource Correlations
Key Topics
Informational Text
What Is Informational Text?
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) defines "informational text" as a broad category of nonfiction resources, including: biographies; autobiographies; books about history, social studies, science, and the arts; technical texts (including how-to books and procedural books); and literary nonfiction. The CCSS stress the importance of focused instruction using informational text with students in the elementary grades.Informational text is designed to make it easier for the reader to find information. This includes using such eye-catching features as section heads, bold-faced terms, table of contents, glossary, captioned photos, art, and info-graphics (graphs, tables, charts and diagrams, etc.)
When selecting informational resources for children, text quality should be judged for its accuracy, the expertise and credibility of the writer, and the currency of the information presented. The developmental appropriateness of the writing, clarity and directness of the language should also be considered.
Watch the February webinar on Informational Text: You will need to create a free Go To Meeting account to see the webinar video.
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Why Is Increasing The Reading Of Informational Text Important?
Traditional K-6 reading instruction has always relied heavily on literature and fictional text. Studies show that only 7-15% of classroom time is spent studying informational text. Yet by sixth grade, most of what students are required to read is nonfiction. What's more, 80% of all adult reading is devoted to expository or nonfiction text.If students are to better comprehend science, social studies, and math text - as well as meet the common core reading and writing requirements for graduation - then we need to increase their exposure to informational texts early in their formal schooling.
Teaching students the skills and strategies to successfully read and comprehend informational text is critical to their future success in higher education and the workplace.
The English Language Arts [ELA] Common Core State Standards recommend more reading of informational text with a ratio of literary to informational as follows:
| Grade Span | Literary | Informational |
|---|---|---|
| K-4 | 50% | 50% |
| 5-8 | 45% | 55% |
| 9-12 | 30% | 70% |
How Does Science A-Z Address the Need for Informational Text?
Science A-Z has a large collection of science informational texts, many of which are written to three levels of text complexity.- Unit Nonfiction Books address the core ideas of science by explaining important concepts through text and visuals. Books at each of the three reading levels convey similar concepts, images, and vocabulary.
- Investigation Packs are sets of passages that foster group discussion and collaboration among students as they dig deeper into science content. Various I.Files within a pack include a range of reading levels to allow for differentiated instruction using informational text.
- FOCUS Books help students explore high-interest topics related to Science A-Z units. The FOCUS books within a science unit include a range of reading levels to allow for differentiated instruction.
- Also available: Quick Reads -- short, informative passages on unit-related topics; Science in the News -- captivating articles covering current news in STEM fields; and Career Files -- descriptive and informative text about STEM-related careers.
Text Complexity
What Is Text Complexity?
Text complexity is what the term implies: how challenging is the material for the child at their specific grade level. The Common Core State Standards use three factors to determine the complexity of a text:- Qualitative Measures
- Quantitative Measures
- Considerations relating to the reader and task
Qualitative measures examine text attributes that can only be evaluated by the person that is reading the book or passage. The reader is required to consider such factors as:
Levels of meaning: Is the purpose explicitly stated or is it vague? Does it have a single level of meaning vs. multiple purposes?Quantitative measures are what publishers traditionally relied upon to determine the difficulty of a text. There are dozens of formulas used to figure text difficulty. Many of these formulas consider only two factors: sentence length and the number of difficult or unfamiliar words or they look at sentence length and syllable count. Needless to say, these factors are fairly limiting when it comes to determining the complexity of a text.
Clarity and conventions of language: Is the language clear or is it vague and purposefully misleading? Is the language contemporary and familiar or is it unfamiliar and archaic? Is the text conversational or academic? Is there wide use of figurative language, idiomatic expressions, etc.? Is the text cohesive or does it lack cohesion?
Knowledge demands: Is it a single-themed text and relatively simple as opposed to multiple-themed and complex? Does the text deal with common everyday experiences or does it present experiences that are likely vastly different from those of the reader? Is the text presented from single or multiple perspectives? Are there frequent changes in the setting? How many, if any, references to other texts does the text contain?
Structure: How is the text organized - chronologically or in another logical fashion? Is it randomly arranged with complex and loosely connected content? Does the structure and organization make sense? Are sections and features clearly labeled? Is the text free from unnecessary distractions?
Visual device complexity: Are graphical devices relatively simple or are they complex? Are the graphics more "for show" rather than necessary to help the student understand the material being presented?
Considerations relating to the reader and tasks is the vital third component. Each reader brings different skills, background, and motivation to the act of reading. For example, a student who is interested in the topic being read is likely to bring more background knowledge to the reading task and want to learn more.
The importance of the assignment itself can also influence the reading activity. Skimming a book or article for a key piece of information or reading leisurely places less demand on the reading task than if a student is preparing for an exam, assembling a piece of equipment, or reading for long-term retention.
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Why Is Text Complexity An Issue?
Over the past 50 years the text that students have encountered in middle and high school had decreased in complexity, while textbooks in colleges, universities, and the workplace have become more complex. As a result too many students graduating from high school lack sufficient skills required to comprehend the text they encounter in college and the workplace. The authors of the Common Core State ELA Standards have taken steps to ensure that greater attention is paid to gradually increasing the complexity of the text students read and comprehend as they move through school.How Does Science A-Z Address Text Complexity?
Science A-Z provides an extensive collection of informational texts written to three levels of difficulty within a grade span. In order to determine the complexity of the text, each book is analyzed by both quantitative and qualitative measures. Resources at three levels per grade span include: Unit Nonfiction Books, FOCUS Books, Quick Reads, and I.Files. Additionally, Science in the News is provided at three reading levels across the K-6 range.Close Reading
What Is Close Reading?
Close Reading is a central focus of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). It requires students to get truly involved with the text they are reading. The purpose is to teach them to notice features and language used by the author. Students will be required to think thoroughly and methodically about the details in a text.Close reading isn't the old "students read, teacher questions and evaluates" model. While it is initially modeled and then guided by a teacher, over time the teacher releases the responsibility of close reading to the student. Teachers help students determine how a text is organized, and understand the effect of the author's word choice in a certain passage. Close reading goes "deeper than the text". It mines what is under the surface of the words. Students eventually evaluate or critique what is written.
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Why Is Close Reading Important?
Close reading teaches students to seek out micro-levels of understanding. It's more than being able to retell a story or provide a main idea or supporting details from a text. When students are taught to read a text closely they become more skilled at locating evidence within a sentence or a paragraph or a page of a text or story. Then orally or in writing, they can justify answers to text-dependent questions based on evidence. These are basic close reading skills as outlined by the Common Core English language arts Standards that every student must know to succeed in college and career.As educators, we're concerned about students' lack of comprehension, especially of informational text. Today many students are barely grazing the surface of the text they read. They typically don't take the time to understand and make connections to the text. Close reading is being emphasized by the CCSS to ensure today's students dig deeper into the text, and start making those connections.
How Can Science A-Z Resources Support the Teaching of Close Reading?
Students learning science content are required to pay close attention to details. Science A-Z provides an extensive collection of books and resources that can be used for close-reading instruction and practice.- Investigation Packs are specifically designed to support close reading. Students must read closely to find what all the I.Files have in common so that they can discuss their findings with their peers and answer the Key Question. These materials also help meet Common Core standards related to informational text, text complexity, and written responses to reading.
- After students read FOCUS Books, they answer questions on the Read-Think-Write page. These questions assess their reading comprehension and content mastery while encouraging readers to think critically. Students often must closely re-read the text and analyze diagrams in order to answer the questions.
- During Storylines, students read books and other passages with a purpose to learn about Disciplinary Core Ideas and Crosscutting Concepts. They use reading resources to gather evidence needed to support claims and to be able to engage in Science and Engineering Practices.
Text-dependent Questions
What Are Text-dependent Questions?
Text-dependent questions are those that can only be answered by referring back to the text being read. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) require students to "read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it. They must also cite pertinent evidence from the text when responding orally or when writing an answer to questions about the text. Students can no longer rely solely on prior knowledge or personal experience.Become your school's Common Core expert. Attend our free webinars every month in 2013. We'll focus on one key Common Core topic each month.
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Why Are Text-dependent Questions Important?
Good text-dependent questions guarantee careful investigation of text. They will often lead students to discover something important that may have been overlooked the first time they read the text. They guide students to dive deeper into the text, and to answer or identify the core understandings or insights that are essential.Text-dependent questions can be used by the teacher to promote discussion and help students to understand even better what they are reading. They can be used to start student discussions and give students opportunities to discuss the text with each other and voice their opinions.
The Common Core ELA Standards require moving instruction away from generic questions such as, "What is the main idea and three supporting details? to questions that require students to analyze what they are reading. An example of a text-dependent question would be something like "The article describes the male emperor penguin as 'tough'. Give two pieces of information from the article that demonstrates how they are tough.
How Does Science A-Z Support Teaching/Using Text-Dependent Questions?
Science A-Z offers teachers and students access to multiple resources that ask text-dependent questions, including Quick Reads and the Discussion Cards and Quizzes that accompany Unit Nonfiction Books. These questions promote critical-thinking skills and require students to closely re-read a section of text in order to fully understand a concept or fact.- Investigation Packs are sets of student texts built around answering a text-dependent Key Question. Students each read one I.File. Then as a group, they collect evidence from the text to identify what all the files had in common. The activity concludes by reading a Mystery File in order to answer a text-dependent Mystery File Question.
- FOCUS Books help students more deeply explore the content covered in Science A-Z units. Each book begins with a Focus Question to set the purpose for reading and to connect to a key science concept. After reading the book, students answer text-dependent questions of varying complexity that assess reading comprehension and encourage them to think critically.
- Many editions of Science in the News conclude with a series of text-dependent questions to assess student comprehension of the current events articles in that issue.
Academic Vocabulary
What Is Academic Vocabulary?
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) define academic vocabulary words as the words that are traditionally used in academic dialogue and text. Specifically, it refers to words that are not necessarily common or that children would encounter in conversation. These words often relate to other more familiar words that students use. For example, rather than watch, observe. They are also words that help students understand oral directions and classroom instructional dialog. They also help students to comprehend text across different content areas- including math, science, and social studies/history.Vocabulary words are often categorized into three tiers.
Tier 1 words: These words are basic vocabulary or the more common words most children will know. They include high-frequency words and usually are not multiple meaning words.
Tier 2 words: Less familiar, yet useful vocabulary found in written text and shared between the teacher and student in conversation. The Common Core State Standards refers to these as "general academic words." Sometimes they are referred to as "rich vocabulary." These words are more precise or subtle forms of familiar words and include multiple meaning words. Instead of walk for example, saunter could be used. These words are found across a variety of domains.
Tier 3 words: CCSS refers to these words as "domain specific;" they are critical to understanding the concepts of the content taught in schools. Generally, they have low frequency use and are limited to specific knowledge domains. Examples would include words such as isotope, peninsula, refinery. They are best learned when teaching specific content lessons, and tend to be more common in informational text.
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Why Is Teaching Academic Vocabulary Important?
Vocabulary's link to comprehension has been extensively researched and the importance of directly teaching vocabulary has been firmly established. Unfortunately, in recent years the teaching of vocabulary has not been frequent or systematic in schools. The Common Core includes vocabulary instruction and reinforcement in the English Language Arts [ELA] standards. The standards dealing with vocabulary focus on "understanding words and phrases, their relationships, and their nuances and on acquiring new vocabulary."The Common Core ELA standards stress the need to provide direct and explicit instruction for academic vocabulary. When teaching vocabulary, it is best not to make students look up words in a dictionary or a glossary and write out the definition. They usually pick the first option, and it often isn't the right one.
We recommend the 6 steps that Robert Marzano presents in his book Building Academic Vocabulary (2004).
Step 1: Teacher provides a description, explanation or example of the new term
Step 2: Students restate an explanation of the new term in their own words
Step 3: Students create a nonlinguistic representation of the term
Step 4: Students periodically do activities that help add to their knowledge of the vocabulary terms
Step 5: Students are periodically asked to discuss terms with one another
Step 6: Students are periodically involved in games that allow them to review terms
How Does Science A-Z Support Teaching Academic Vocabulary?
The field of science is full of specialized content vocabulary, but students also must learn academic vocabulary terms such as analyze, compare, observe, process, cycle, and pattern.- Nearly every resource from Science A-Z, including Unit Nonfiction Books and FOCUS Books, contains academic vocabulary and can be used to teach these terms in context.
- The Quick Reads and Process Activities within the Process Science units are particularly rich in academic vocabulary.
- The Teaching Tips that accompany FOCUS Books and PBL Packs each provide a list of key academic vocabulary terms, which teachers can use for pre-teaching or reinforcement as students complete the activities.
- Vocabulary Cards, Game Packs, and Word Work activity sheets all provide direct practice with key terms from each unit.
- Interactive Science Lessons provide multiple exposures to key academic vocabulary as students complete tasks and apply practices.
Writing
What Is Writing?
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) require students to be able to write effectively and proficiently. In order to ensure college and career readiness, students must be able to write for a variety of purposes, cite evidence from text, research and present knowledge on a topic, and produce and publish writing in a variety of formats.The common core standards focus on three writing categories:
1. explanatory/informational
2. narrative
3. opinion/argument
Writing assignments are not what they used to be. Not so long ago, many teachers had students concentrate on fictional or personal narrative writing. Very little attention was paid to how they interpreted and wrote informational text.
However, key shifts in writing objectives have been made by CCSS. Students must now be able to confidently write about a text. They must be able to compose more extensive pieces where they have a chance to write it, read it, review it and revise it. Wherever possible, technology needs to be a part of the instruction as well — whether it is for the writing itself or to access multiple sources of information.
Become your school's Common Core expert. Attend our free webinars every month in 2013. We'll focus on one key Common Core topic each month.
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Why Is Writing Important?
Studies show that learning to present important information in an organized piece of writing helps students generate a greater understanding of a text. In addition, it helps to improve both their reading comprehension and their writing skills. With the implementation of the Common Core English language arts Standards, students will be required to use writing skills to incorporate the skills of citing evidence from text. They will learn to analyze content using correct English rules of grammar. They will be encouraged to develop a highly academic and rich vocabulary, and to report findings on the subjects they choose to cover.Writing about texts will also bolster overall comprehension and meaning behind the text through building knowledge about a topic or reflection. This includes written responses to text-dependent questions.
For example, in grade 4 of the common core writing standards (W.4.1), students should be able to write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information. In short, it says that students must be able to do the following:
- Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer’s purpose
- Provide reasons supported by facts and details
- Link opinion and reasons using words and phrases
- Provide a concluding statement or section related to the opinion presented
How Do Science A-Z's Resources Support The Teaching Of Writing?
Throughout the dozens of resources in each Science A-Z unit, students are prompted to write in response to reading about science concepts and as they conduct hands-on science investigations or experiments.- With FOCUS Books and Investigation Packs, students write about what they learned after reading.
- While using Project-Based Learning Packs students record observations in their SAZ Journal and teams write daily updates in their PBL Project Organizer.
- As students participate in hands-on Process Activities, they record the results in data tables, and then write answers to questions that guide them to analyze their data and draw conclusions.
- Science A-Z Debates require students to consider a proposal and then write their own position statements supporting or opposing the proposal.
Assessment
What Is An Assessment?
An assessment is any formal or informal measurement of student progress used to improve overall learning. As of the 2014-2015 school year, most of the current formal end-of-year state tests will be replaced by a new exam created by one of two consortiums that evaluates students against the set of new Common Core State Standards (CCSS).The common core assessments created by the consortiums will measure both student achievement and progress on the CCSS. These assessments include:
- Interim/benchmark assessments
- Formative assessments
- Performance assessments
- Summative assessments
The criteria for these new Common Core ELA assessments will include:
- An intense focus on the close examination of text
- Mastery of complex literary and informational reading
- The ability to infer meaning from what is read
- The ability to both answer text-dependent questions and build arguments using evidence from the text
Students will be required to demonstrate a greater depth of knowledge within subject areas, cite evidence from the text in support of answers, and use technology to answer certain questions.
The types of assessment formats will be enhanced from traditional state testing items (such as multiple choice questions) to also include performance tasks, technology items, and constructed responses. In addition, writing about texts will be required to improve overall comprehension and meaning behind the text.
Three writing types will specifically be covered within the new CCSS framework: explanatory/informational, narrative, and opinion/argument.
Become your school's Common Core expert. Attend our free webinars every month in 2013. We'll focus on one key Common Core topic each month.
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- Watch previously recorded webinars for any topics you've missed.
Why Are Assessments Important?
The purpose of CCSS and common core standards assessments are to ensure that the expectations and objectives at each grade level are the same across every school, district, and state. However, the standards still allow educators the flexibility to teach in ways that meet the needs of their particular student population. The CCSS assessments will require students to apply learning in more complex ways. This will help students to better prepare for both college and for making their way in the workplace.Reports will be supplied to teachers and administrators, providing specific information on how students are progressing in meeting CCSS requirements. These requirements include: demonstrating independence; building strong content knowledge; responding to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline; comprehension and critiques; valuing evidence; using technology and digital media strategically and capably; and understanding other perspectives and cultures.
How Do Science A-Z Resources Support CCSS Assessments?
Each Science A-Z unit provides ample opportunities to conduct both formative and summative assessment of reading skills and science understanding.- The Book Quiz that accompanies each Unit Nonfiction Book assesses a student's reading comprehension and science-content knowledge. These quizzes offer a blend of literal, inferential, vocabulary, data analysis, and extended-response writing questions.
- Investigation Packs, FOCUS Books, and the Discussion Cards that accompany each set of Unit Nonfiction Books all provide opportunities for teachers to conduct informal assessments of students' reading comprehension while promoting critical thinking, communication, and collaboration.
- Each part of an Interactive Science Lesson ends with a built-in digital assessment over a series of quiz slides. Students demonstrate their understanding of important science knowledge and skills. Their first attempt is reported separately so that teachers can assess improvement if students complete a lesson multiple times.
- Teachers can also assess students' participation in authentic science experiences as kids conduct hands-on science experiments and engineering challenges. Student performance can be assessed as they complete Science A-Z Project-Based Learning Packs, Process Activities, Science Fair Resources, and the activity prompt on the back cover of each FOCUS Book.
- Storylines provide opportunities for ongoing formative assessment as students complete activities and performance-based assessments at the end of each lesson. Teachers can use student artifacts, such as models, oral arguments, claim-evidence-reasoning charts, data tables, and prototype designs, for informal documentation of student progress. The Final Assessment at the end of each Storyline provides a more summative, quantitative means of analyzing student mastery of learning objectives.
