There is a
lot of debate surrounding the CCSS but that’s healthy; after-all, in education
you can be sure of one thing—change will happen and you can’t always be certain
it’s for the best. Programs and approaches often cycle through our school
systems with new names, minor (or major) changes and a big price tag. It makes
sense to take a close and appraising look at the changes before hopping on board
and spending our limited resources to do so.
That said,
since the majority of the states in the US have adopted the standards, and we
need to get on with our job of educating children, I’d like to look for creative
ways to implement them. We don’t need to make extravagant purchases to begin.
There are wonderful resources around our schools that will do the job effectively:
good books, involved parents, dedicated teachers and librarians, like our very
own Allison Brown who used her creative talents to raise funds to purchase new
books for our students. She is aware of the new standards and was inspired by
them to increase our selection of non-fiction books and refresh our selection
of fiction.
Besides a
shift to more non-fiction in our schools, the Common Core State Standards bring
other changes. I’ve been poking around the
CCSS website to identify some of them (http://www.corestandards.org/).
When I read, “[t]he Standards insist that instruction in reading, writing,
speaking, listening, and language be a shared responsibility within the school,”
I realized that I too share that responsibility. I’m not a classroom teacher
but I do support students in my role as a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP). Looking
at the standards from my SLP perspective, I was surprised to discover that
language skills are at the heart of most of them.
I work with
students from kindergarten to those out of high school and it’s obvious to me—
these kids are going to need strong language skills in order to meet the
standards at every age. From the very first kindergarten reading standard,
“With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a
text,” a child will need appropriate language skills to achieve the goals.
This need is
even more obvious when you come to the “Speaking and Listening” standards, like
this one where second graders are expected to, “[t]ell a story or recount an
experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking
audibly in coherent sentences.” And how
about the language standards, with their emphasis on grammar? That falls neatly
in the SLP’s domain.
Even the
math standards have a language component—first graders are expected to
“Distinguish between defining attributes (e.g. triangles are closed and
three-sided) versus non-defining attributes (e.g. color, orientation, overall
size . . .) These kids are going to need a healthy vocabulary to be able to
meet that one.
I was a
little worried when I first read through the standards; I thought my caseload
might jump to about 900 students. But
then I remembered; I’m just support staff and lucky for me, our classroom
teachers infuse language instruction throughout their days.
But this all
brings me back to the reason for this post.
Kids benefit when the responsibility for their education is shared
across a school campus and within their homes. I’d like to suggest the
responsibility spreads even further. I’ve introduced my students to some
wonderful stories and non-fiction books written by authors from around the world.
Each author has impacted the students in one way or another. And you can be
certain; these books have provided a perfect springboard to work on several
standards.
Last week,
one of my first grade students came in asking for a story. He said, “I want the
one with the carrots.”
“Which one?”
I asked, “Tell me more about it.”
“You know,
the one where the carrots followed the Rabbit everywhere and scared him, only
he didn’t know for sure, he just saw orange all the time and then he’d turn
around and it was just stuff like a bottle or curtains or a rubber duck.”
Of course, I
quickly realized he was asking for Creepy Carrots! By Aaron Reynolds,
illustrated by Peter Brown, but I didn’t want to interrupt his retelling of this
fabulous tale. Little did Jacob know, he had just demonstrated impressive
growth toward the second Reading Standard for Literature where first grade students
are expected to, “Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate
understanding of their central message or lesson.”
I don’t
think implementing the new standards needs to be a tedious proposition, at
least not in the speech room. And since educating children is a shared
responsibility, I’d love to hear suggestions from others, of how we all can
effectively support children in meeting their goals, and ours for them.
