The Common Core Blues

So. I'm struggling.

No.

Let me rephrase. I'm teaching better than I ever have. But it's not easy.

Let me explain. Our district uses Reading Street, which I used to love, but now it is in no way aligned to the Common Core. Last week, for example, we were supposed to read Animal Park. The focus skill was cause and effect, which is no longer in the first grade standards. I thought, oh, maybe I'll just keep the text and pick a different standard to focus on... It's technically informational, but the text is essentially "Bump bump bump. The truck goes bump. Ooh, look! A Lion!"

I decided NOT to use Reading Street. It was scary. It was liberating. It felt great.

Instead, I decided to focus on main idea and details with informational text. Our school has a license for Reading A-Z, which is fantastic. It has leveled books galore, both informational and literature. They even come with comprehension quizzes and lesson plans. I ended up finding a different book for each reading group. We read and discussed the books one day, used graphic organizers to list the main idea and supporting details from A Year of Many Firsts (these are fabulous and you need them,) then took the comprehension quiz the following day. The only thing I kept from Reading Street was the spelling/phonics, phonemic awareness, and grammar. Not that I'm even using the materials any more, but I'm trying to stick to the pacing for those things.

We use EnVision for math, which is aligned to the Core Standards, so that's been much easier...

Does your district have a series that's no longer aligned to the Common Core? How are you adapting?

Stay tuned for some upcoming posts on how I'm adapting my instruction to meet the Common Core standards and how I'm trying involving my students in planning/instruction to meet some of those "distinguished" boxes on our teacher evaluation rubric!