Common Core Standard For English Language Arts (Page 9 of 43) in pdf

Common Core State StandardS for engliSh language artS & literaCy in hiStory/SoCial StudieS, SCienCe, and teChniCal SubjeCtS

Readers and Tasks

Students’ ability to read complex text does not always develop in a linear fashion. Although the progression of Read-

ing standard 10 (see below) defines required grade-by-grade growth in students’ ability to read complex text, the

development of this ability in individual students is unlikely to occur at an unbroken pace. Students need opportuni-

ties to stretch their reading abilities but also to experience the satisfaction and pleasure of easy, fluent reading within

them, both of which the Standards allow for. As noted above, such factors as students’ motivation, knowledge, and

experiences must also come into play in text selection. Students deeply interested in a given topic, for example, may

engage with texts on that subject across a range of complexity. Particular tasks may also require students to read

harder texts than they would normally be required to. Conversely, teachers who have had success using particular

texts that are easier than those required for a given grade band should feel free to continue to use them so long as

the general movement during a given school year is toward texts of higher levels of complexity.

Students reading well above and well below grade-band level need additional support. Students for whom texts within

their text complexity grade band (or even from the next higher band) present insufficient challenge must be given the

attention and resources necessary to develop their reading ability at an appropriately advanced pace. On the other

hand, students who struggle greatly to read texts within (or even below) their text complexity grade band must be

given the support needed to enable them to read at a grade-appropriate level of complexity.

Even many students on course for college and career readiness are likely to need scaffolding as they master higher

levels of text complexity. As they enter each new grade band, many students are likely to need at least some extra

help as they work to comprehend texts at the high end of the range of difficulty appropriate to the band. For ex-

ample, many students just entering grade 2 will need some support as they read texts that are advanced for the

grades 2–3 text complexity band. Although such support is educationally necessary and desirable, instruction must

move generally toward decreasing scaffolding and increasing independence, with the goal of students reading in-

dependently and proficiently within a given grade band by the end of the band’s final year (continuing the previous

example, the end of grade 3).

Common Core Standard For English Language Arts Page 9