What does 'Common Core Standards' mean?
Hello all of you desiring to help a young one to read! You have come to the right place! Did you know that your child's teacher uses a set of 'standards' to guide his or her reading instruction? (If your child's teacher doesn't, you should be worried!). Here I am going to talk to you about the importance of these standards and give you some gentle guidance about how to find them for your child's school.
Standards-based teaching is making a comeback with the "Common Core Standards" becoming adopted by more and more schools. This is not about the politics of that decision, but rather about having a check list of some sort to guide your child's learning. In order to make learning cohesive, it is best practice for a school to adopt a group of standards so that there are not 'holes' in knowledge and understanding. Standards help each teacher know what he/she should teach and assess during each grade level.
In the school district where I taught, we referred to the state-wide standards. I could go onto the website and look up the grade level, the standard, the standard broken down into main pieces, and examples of how one might assess a student's progress with this standard. This helped me stay on track as a teacher.
As a parent, I used these same standards to make sure my son was up to speed in each area. His teacher may have been doing the same thing, but ultimately, the responsibility belongs to me to make sure that my son can read! I printed and posted these standards on our fridge. I refer to them and make up little games as I get dinner ready. Here's an example of how I would practice a 2nd grade standard:
"Student will apply reference skills to determine word meanings."
me: (pick any word that comes to mind, in this case, I was inspired by the contents of our refrigerator) Check out this jar of pickles. They're called 'petit dills'. What do you think the word 'petit' means?
son: I don't know.
me: Do you have any ideas how you could find out? Or do you know any words that sound similar?
son: Well, they are kinda tiny.
me: Hmm…
And the conversation would go on from there. You get the picture. Converse with your child about words! It's best in a natural conversational setting, but force it if you have to and make it part of 'homework time'!
One more thing, just in case. Standards often have many names: "Grade Level Equivalents", "Learning Targets", "Learning Goals", "Grade Level Expectations"……add a comment if your district uses a different name!
