2023-24 Instructional Focus
Our school-wide instructional focus for this academic year is centered on harnessing the power of assessments, by defining success criteria, using purposeful questioning, and implementing aggressive progress monitoring, to elevate whole-class and small-group instruction, while paying special attention to Next Generation Standard R5.
Next Generation Learning Standard Reading 5
KR5 - Identify literary and informational texts
1R5 - Identify a variety of genres and explain major differences between literary texts and informational texts
2R5 - Describe the overall structure of a text, including describing how the beginning introduces the text and the ending concludes the text.
3R5 - In literary texts, identify parts of stories, dramas, and poems using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza. In informational texts, identify and use text features to build comprehension.
4R5 - In literary texts, identify and analyze structural elements, using terms such as verse, rhythm, meter, characters, settings, dialogue, stage directions. In informational texts, identify the overall structure using terms such as sequence, comparison, cause/effect, and problem/solution.
5R5 - In literary texts, explain how a series of chapters, scenes, or stanzas fits together to determine the overall structure of a story, drama, or poem. In informational texts, compare and contrast the overall structure in two or more texts using terms such as sequence, comparison, cause/effect, and problem/solution.
Teachers are devoting extra attention to this instructional focus by:
Next Generation Learning Standard Reading 5
KR5 - Identify literary and informational texts
1R5 - Identify a variety of genres and explain major differences between literary texts and informational texts
2R5 - Describe the overall structure of a text, including describing how the beginning introduces the text and the ending concludes the text.
3R5 - In literary texts, identify parts of stories, dramas, and poems using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza. In informational texts, identify and use text features to build comprehension.
4R5 - In literary texts, identify and analyze structural elements, using terms such as verse, rhythm, meter, characters, settings, dialogue, stage directions. In informational texts, identify the overall structure using terms such as sequence, comparison, cause/effect, and problem/solution.
5R5 - In literary texts, explain how a series of chapters, scenes, or stanzas fits together to determine the overall structure of a story, drama, or poem. In informational texts, compare and contrast the overall structure in two or more texts using terms such as sequence, comparison, cause/effect, and problem/solution.
Teachers are devoting extra attention to this instructional focus by:
- Assessing Reading Standard 5 vigorously when it organically arises in lessons from unit to unit
- explicitly modeling/thinking aloud the skills involved in this standard
- integrating Readers Theater and other differentiated small-group work to address Reading 5
- providing extra time for students to practice these reading and writing skills, including in computers, PE, music and science classes
- giving students ample feedback in a timely manner
- using read alouds as a powerful vehicle to focus on Reading 5
- getting students metacognitively thinking about craft and structure by emphasizing the notion of structure in a variety of everyday contexts