s/o Are these standards to hard for Kindergarten students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From the Common Core thread:

Do you think that any of these standards is too much to expect your average (not learning disabled, not ESOL) kindergarten student to be able to do, by the end of his/her kindergarten year?

Are kindergarteners, by May, able to ask and answer questions about a text (that was read aloud to them)? Like "Where do frogs lay their eggs?" Are they able to retell a story they have heard (The Little Red Hen....) with help? Can they tell the difference between a story and a poem?

If you think that they cannot do these things, which ones in particular do you think are too hard (or too meaningless) and why?

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.1
With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.2
With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.3
With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.

Craft and Structure:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.4
Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.5
Recognize common types of texts (e.g., storybooks, poems).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.6
With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.7
With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g., what moment in a story an illustration depicts).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.8
(RL.K.8 not applicable to literature)

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.9

With prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories.

Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.10
Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.

None of these are too hard at all. All but two are with prompting and support.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, that's what I thought.

[Anonymous]

None of these are too hard at all. All but two are with prompting and support.

Depends on the kids who are in the kindergarten class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

None of these are too hard at all. All but two are with prompting and support.

Depends on the kids who are in the kindergarten class.

This is not new however- there are always some kids that will be ahead, and some that will be behind, with the majority in the middle. Tell me, before common core, were teachers making individual standards for each child? No.

[Anonymous]

This is not new however- there are always some kids that will be ahead, and some that will be behind, with the majority in the middle. Tell me, before common core, were teachers making individual standards for each child? No.

How is Common Core better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This is not new however- there are always some kids that will be ahead, and some that will be behind, with the majority in the middle. Tell me, before common core, were teachers making individual standards for each child? No.

How is Common Core better?

Asked and answered up thread.

[Anonymous]

Asked and answered up thread

More questions than answers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Asked and answered up thread

More questions than answers.

I don't have time to answer you, so I will take a page from a PP's book, and just link to someone's blog.

http://neatoday.org/2013/05/10/six-ways-the-common-core-is-good-for-students/


A few quotes:

“I haven’t been able to do that in years because of the push to cover so many things. Time is tight, especially because of all the benchmarks and high-stakes testing,” Mili says. “So I’ve had to put the fun, creative activities aside to work on drill and skill. But the Common Core streamlines content, and with less to cover, I can enrich the experience, which gives my students a greater understanding.”



When students can explore a concept and really immerse themselves in that content, they emerge with a full understanding that lasts well beyond testing season, says Kisha Davis-Caldwell, a fourth-grade teacher at a Maryland Title 1 elementary school.
“I’ve been faced with the challenge of having to teach roughly 100 math topics over the course of a single year,” says Davis-Caldwell. “The Common Core takes this smorgasbord of topics and removes things from the plate, allowing me to focus on key topics we know will form a clear and a consistent foundation for students.”


One way Powers says the standards ratchet up the rigor is by requiring more nonfiction texts to be included in lessons on works of fiction, and vice versa. She uses Abraham Lincoln as an example. A lesson could start with “O Captain! My Captain!”, the extended metaphor poem written by Walt Whitman about the death of Lincoln, and incorporate the historical novel Assassin, which includes a fictional character in the plot. Then she’d follow that with the nonfiction work, Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, and have students also look at newspaper clippings from the time.


The Common Core allows educators to take ownership of the curriculum — it puts it back into the hands of teachers, who know what information is best for students and how best to deliver that information.

Peter Mili says the key word to focus on is “common.” He believes there is far too much academic variability from state to state and not enough collaboration. With the Common Core State Standards, “the good things that may be happening in Alabama can be shared and found useful to educators in Arizona because they are working on the same topics.”

Cheryl Mosier, an Earth Science teacher from Colorado, says she’s most excited about the Common Core because it’ll be a challenge for all students, not just the high achieving students, which Mosier and her colleagues say will go a long way to closing achievement and opportunity gaps for poor and minority children. If students from all parts of the country — affluent, rural, low-income or urban — are being held to the same rigorous standards, it promotes equity in the quality of education and the level of achievement gained.

“With the Common Core, we’re not going to have pockets of really high performing kids in one area compared to another area where kids aren’t working on the same level,” she says “Everybody is going to have a high bar to meet, but it’s a bar that can be met with support from – and for — all teachers.”


Davis-Caldwell’s Title 1 school is in a Washington, D.C., suburb. In the D.C. metro area, like in other areas in and around our nation’s cities, there is a high rate of mobility among the poorest residents. Students regularly move from town to town, county to county, or even state to state – often in the middle of the school year.

There has been no alignment from state to state on what’s being taught, so when a fourth-grade student learning geometry and fractions in the first quarter of the school year suddenly moves to Kansas in the second quarter, he may have entirely different lessons to learn and be tested on.

It also helps teachers better serve their students, says Davis-Caldwell. When teachers in one grade level focus consistently and comprehensively on the most critical and fundamental concepts, their students move on to the next grade level able to build on that solid foundation rather than reviewing what should have been learned in the previous grade.


If a student who was taught how to think critically and how to read texts for information and analysis can explain the premise behind a mathematical thesis, she’ll have options and opportunities, Mili says. Students with that kind of education will be able to decide what kind of career path to follow or whether they want to attend a university or any kind of school because they were prepared to do a higher level of work that is expected in our society and our economy.

Student success is the outcome every education professional works so tirelessly toward, and the Common Core will help them get there if it’s implemented well, according to the panel of educators.

“Yes, it’s an extra workload as a teacher, and it’s difficult…but it’s for the betterment of the students,” says Davis-Caldwell. “And if we keep that our focus, I don’t see why we can’t be successful.”

[Anonymous]

And another post from the other thread:
As a Wisconsin Kindergarten teacher who just completed a school year under the Common Core ELAINE and Math Standards, I am sickened by the expectations I was forced to have of my 5year old CHILDREN. My stomach was turning everyday as I cried tears in my head when I needed to deliver 70+ minutes of sit down reading instruction and 60 minutes of workbook math instruction everyday. Free time and time for socializing was out. Even formal scheduled snack time, no science or social studies in the name of a reading level of D for ALL and fluency in math facts to 10. I could go on an on about no time for classroom art, music or FUN! It makes me want to quit. Speaking against only got me threats of no job and trouble. Still trying to do something about it with a fake smile."

"These people KNOW nothing about childhood development! Children’s minds go through developmental stages. A kindergartener is not ready for abstract concepts yet . I teach 4th grade and there are students who are still not ready for some of the abstract concepts we expect them to grasp.
I think this is what is causing some of our reading gaps also (especially with boys). We are trying to teach concepts they are not yet ready for, thus they do not quite get them. They then move forward to the next grade, already behind, and then we continue to push them forward whether they are ready or not! The students I have now are often 1 (and in some cases 2 years younger) then what I hade a few years ago. SURPRISE–these are the students who often enter my class with the most difficulty in reading. I have no problem with high expectations for my students, as long as those expectations are realistic for their age and stage of development!"

"I have been teaching kindergarten for 15 years and yes, I do feel the new common core standards are too difficult for many students. There will always be those kids who excel, but there will be far more who struggle. It is very difficult to tell a parent AND a child, “I’m sorry, but you are a failure at 5 years old.” It breaks my heart. Not to mention the fact that in California kindergarten isn’t even required and many students enter school as first graders. Those students will be behind from the moment they enter school."


the other thread:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This is not new however- there are always some kids that will be ahead, and some that will be behind, with the majority in the middle. Tell me, before common core, were teachers making individual standards for each child? No.

How is Common Core better?

How is it worse?

[Anonymous]

Who is the best judge on whether the standards are "developmentally appropriate?" This term gets thrown out a lot but are these people experts in education and childhood development? It also seems this opinion differs on whether you live in say, Nevada vs. Maryland.

[Anonymous]

Who is the best judge on whether the standards are "developmentally appropriate?" This term gets thrown out a lot but are these people experts in education and childhood development? It also seems this opinion differs on whether you live in say, Nevada vs. Maryland.

In my opinion, the teachers are the best judge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Who is the best judge on whether the standards are "developmentally appropriate?" This term gets thrown out a lot but are these people experts in education and childhood development? It also seems this opinion differs on whether you live in say, Nevada vs. Maryland.

In my opinion, the teachers are the best judge.

So you're saying that each teacher should come up with their own standards and curriculum? Even new teachers?

[Anonymous]

Common Core standards are a fiasco.

Groups to stop Common Core are springing up in every state, and their membership is growing by leaps and bounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Common Core standards are a fiasco.

Groups to stop Common Core are springing up in every state, and their membership is growing by leaps and bounds.

Group-think is very powerful.