and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.
6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.*
8. Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.
9. Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.
* Please consult the full Common Core State Standards document (and all updates and appendices) at http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy. See “Research to Build Knowledge” in the Writing section and “Comprehension and Collaboration” in the Speaking and Listening section for additional standards relevant to gathering, assessing, and applying information from print and digital sources.
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
10. Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.
Source: Copyright © 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.
College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading
The CCR anchor standards are the same for K–12. The guiding principle here is that the core reading skills should not change as students advance; rather, the level at which students learn and can perform these skills should increase in complexity as they move from one grade to the next. However, for grades K–2, we have to recognize that the standards were back mapped from the secondary level—that is, the authors envisioned what college students need and then wrote standards, working their way down the grades. Thus, as you use this book, remember that children in K–2 can’t just “jump over” developmental milestones in an ambitious attempt to achieve an anchor standard. There are certain life and learning experiences they need to have, and certain concepts they need to learn, before they are capable of handling many complex academic skills in a meaningful way. The anchor standards nonetheless are goalposts to work toward. As you read the “gist” of the standards below, remember they represent what our K–2 students will grow into during each year and deepen later in elementary, middle, and high school. The journey starts in K–2!
Key Ideas and Details
This first strand of reading standards emphasizes students’ ability to identify key ideas and themes in a text, whether literary, informational, primary, or foundational and whether in print, graphic, quantitative, or mixed media formats. The focus of this first set of standards is on reading to understand, during which students focus on what the text says. The premise is that students cannot delve into the deeper meaning of any text if they cannot first grasp the surface meaning of that text. Beyond merely identifying these ideas, readers must learn to see how these ideas and themes, or the story’s characters and events, develop and evolve over the course of a text. Such reading demands that students know how to identify, evaluate, assess, and analyze the elements of a text for their importance, function, and meaning within the text.
Craft and Structure
The second set of standards builds on the first, focusing not on what the text says but on how it says it, the emphasis here being on analyzing how texts are made to serve a function or achieve a purpose. These standards ask readers to examine the choices the author makes in words and sentence and paragraph structure and how these choices contribute to the meaning of the text and the author’s larger purpose. Inherent in the study of craft and structure is how these elements interact with and influence the ideas and details outlined in the first three standards.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
This third strand might be summed up as reading to extend or deepen one’s knowledge of a subject by comparing what a range of sources have said about it over time and across different media. In addition, these standards emphasize the importance of being able to read the arguments; that is, they look at how to identify the claims the texts make and evaluate the evidence used to support those claims regardless of the media. Finally, these standards ask students to analyze the author’s choices of means and medium and the effects those choices have on ideas and details. Thus, if a writer integrates words, images, and video in a mixed media text, readers should be able to examine how and why the author did that for stylistic and rhetorical purposes.
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
The Common Core State Standards document itself offers the most useful explanation of what this last standard means in a footnote titled “Note on range and content of student reading,” which accompanies the reading standards:
To become college and career ready, students must grapple with works of exceptional craft and thought whose range extends across genres, cultures, and centuries. Such works offer profound insights into the human condition and serve as models for students’ own thinking and writing. Along with high-quality contemporary works, these texts should be chosen from among seminal U.S. documents, the classics of American literature, and the timeless dramas of Shakespeare. Through wide and deep reading of literature and literary nonfiction of steadily increasing sophistication, students gain a reservoir of literary and cultural knowledge, references, and images; the ability to evaluate intricate arguments; and the capacity to surmount the challenges posed by complex texts. (CCSS 2010, p. 35)
Source: Adapted from Jim Burke, The Common Core Companion: The Standards Decoded, Grades 6–8 (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2013).
Key Ideas and Details
Grades K–2 Common Core Reading Standard 1: Key Ideas and Details
Standard 1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
Literature
K With prompting and support, students ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
1 Students ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
2 Students ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.
Informational Text
K With prompting and support, students ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
1
