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This publication helps educators create differentiated reading instruction experiences for their students by showing the relationship between two distinct resources: Student Center Activities (SCAs) and the Common Core State Standards (CCSSs). Reading specialists, reading coaches, and teachers will find this document useful in lesson planning, as it contains crosswalks that map the relationships between each Student Center Activity and a corresponding, grade-specific standard in CCSS. Specifically, this publication illustrates how SCAs relate to standards in English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects K-5 (ELA-Literacy). The SCAs were created by the Florida Center for Reading Research for K-5 classroom teachers as differentiated reading activities for use in small student groups. The activities provide practice and support skill-building in the five components of reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension). They do not constitute a reading program and are not intended to be implemented as initial instruction. Rather, SCAs should be used for independent practice opportunities and reinforcement after the explicit teaching of concepts or skills. SCAs can also be used with struggling readers in intervention and special education settings and with adolescents who need intensive intervention in any of the five components of reading. The SCAs appear in grade span groups: K-1, 2-3 and 4-5.

This resource is a compilation of three documents that support the teaching of spelling in today's schools: a discussion of "Why Spelling Instruction Matters", a checklist for evaluating a spelling program, and tables of Common Core State Standards that are linked to spelling instruction. "Why Spelling Instruction Matters" explains the importance of spelling to students' reading abilities, describes models of spelling development, and explains common approaches to spelling instruction. It offers supporting figures and diagrams as well as appendices with additional information and lists of resources helpful to practitioners. Using the information from "Why Spelling Instruction Matters", the Center on Instruction created two companion documents as tools for administrators and teachers. The items in "A Checklist for Evaluating a Spelling Program" are based on research outlined in the main document and offer a quick reference to the key elements for determining students' spelling abilities and teaching basic and more complex skills. The second companion tool, "Tables of Common Core State Standards Linked to Spelling", connects the information in Why Spelling Instruction Matters to grade-level expectations. The document also includes guidance about how to read and use the information in the tables. Each document contains figures, footnotes and references.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) initiative is a state-led effort that establishes a set of clear educational standards for English language arts and mathematics that states can voluntarily adopt. The standards have been informed by the best available evidence and the highest standards across the country and the world. They have been designed by a diverse group of teachers, experts, parents, and school administrators. The CCSS includes the Reading Standards: Foundational Skills (K-5). These standards foster students' understanding and working knowledge of the concepts of print, the alphabetic principle, and other basic conventions of the English writing system. These foundational skills do not represent an endpoint--they are necessary and important components of an effective, comprehensive reading program designed to develop proficient readers who comprehend texts across a range of types and disciplines (CCSS, 2010).This document serves (a) literacy leaders at the regional level who support state, district, and school administrators and (b) teachers who seek to know and understand the sub-skills, or prerequisites, students need to achieve each of the Foundational Skills (K-5) in the Common Core State Reading Standards. The foundational skills define end-of-year expectations. As with the other standards, the authors have been written this way intentionally to allow teachers, curriculum developers, and states to determine how to meet these expectations. The foundational skills describe the concepts children must acquire to become proficient in decoding text. Researchers have determined a general progression of how children develop these skills (Vandervelden & Siegel, 1995; Adams, 1996; Ehri, 1998; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000). The authors have based this document on an analysis that determined the "sub-skills" students need to achieve each foundational skill. In this document, they define a "sub-skill" as a concept or behavior in which a student needs to be proficient to master the foundational skill. They also include "instructional examples" aligned to the "sub-skills". The "instructional examples" give teachers samples of activity types that facilitate acquisition of the "sub-skills", which can lead to attainment of the Common Core State Standards. This document contains five sections. Each section targets one grade level and includes the following four areas of reading: Print Concepts, Phonological Awareness, Phonics and Word Recognition, and Fluency. Each section centers on one grade level, but the authors have included up to three grade levels on each chart so that educators have access to the "sub-skills" to inform instruction for students who are either struggling and need extra support or intervention, or for students performing above grade level expectations and require enrichment. This also allows a teacher to see which skills should have been mastered in the previous year and what students are preparing for in the upcoming years.

Since 2007, when this technical report was originally issued, the assessment field has made considerable progress in developing valid and reliable screening measures for early mathematics difficulties. This update includes new research published since 2007. It focuses on valid and reliable screening measures for students in kindergarten and first grade. However, the authors also examined data on screening tests for second and third grades because the goal of screening is to identify students who might struggle to learn mathematics during their initial school years. Appended are: (1) Summary of the Evidence Base on Early Screening Measures as of December 2010; and (2) Procedure for Reviewing the Literature on Early Screening in Mathematics. (Contains 5 tables, 1 figure and 5 footnotes.) [For the first edition, "Screening for Mathematics Difficulties in K-3 Students," see ED521575.]

One question frequently arises in the work of the Regional Comprehensive Centers: "What are states, districts, and schools doing about RTI?" This document addresses that question, with particular focus on instruction and the implementation of effective practices. It uses a frequently asked questions (FAQs) format, with answers based on the collective experience, to date, of five (three elementary and two middle) public U.S. schools that are implementing elements of Response to Intervention (RTI), including evidence-based instruction, progress monitoring, structures for regulating the intensity of intervention, and professional development. Information was gathered by phone interviews and site visits during Spring 2007 with the five participating sites. Questions were submitted by Regional Comprehensive Centers and answers developed by the Center on Instruction (COI) in collaboration with key individuals from the visited sites. Before addressing the questions, this document provides a broad overview of Response to Intervention. The primary audiences for the material presented here are the Regional Comprehensive Centers and their client state departments of education. The information may also be of interest to persons working in schools and school districts that are considering RTI or working on its implementation. Appended are: (1) Response to Intervention; (2) Selecting RTI Implementation Sites; (3) RTI Glossary; (4) Site Demographics; and (5) Brief Site Descriptions. (Contains 2 tables and 7 footnotes.)

This summary of nine studies provides information about evidence-based practices for Tier 2 interventions and how to use Response to Intervention (RTI) in mathematics. It gives a critical technical analysis and review of research on RTI and multi-tiered instructional systems. In an earlier Center on Instruction publication, the authors described valid and reliable measures for early screening and identification of students with mathematics disabilities and systems for progress monitoring in mathematics (Gersten, Clarke, & Jordan, 2007). Research articles are often hard to read and filled with irrelevant information. With the reauthorization of IDEA (Individuals With Disabilities Education Act), state and local school officials have been given permission to use Response to Intervention as one way to help students in need of instructional intervention and to identify those students who need further services. Interest in Response to Intervention has increased tremendously as a result, especially in Title I schools. This summary will help inform those who are interested in this field about the most current research available. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

One of the best methods of formative assessment in academic areas and a method that exemplifies the characteristics of good measures is Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM; Deno, 1985). Developed at the University of Minnesota in the early 1970's, CBM has been researched in academic areas including mathematics computation, concepts, and applications; early numeracy; reading; early literacy; writing; spelling; science; and social studies. This paper describes Mathematics-CBM (M-CBM), including a brief history, basic procedures, implications for practice, and further resources. In addition, this paper reviews the research that supports the use of M-CBM. The intended audience is practitioners or researchers who are seeking more information on M-CBM procedures and the research that supports the use of these procedures. Resources for CBM Information are appended. (Contains 4 tables.)

A major advance in the field of reading over the past 15 years has been the development and validation of screening measures that can detect with reasonable accuracy those kindergartners and first graders likely to experience difficulty in learning to read. Increasingly, these students now receive additional instructional support during the critical early years of schooling. The authors believe the field of mathematics is ready for a similar leap forward in identifying and providing intensive support for young students who are experiencing difficulties in learning the fundamentals of mathematics. The field now possesses adequate information on valid early screening measures that could be used by teachers and school personnel to identify these students. Screening tools to identify students at risk for later mathematics difficulties must address a number of critical variables, including predictive validity and content selection. The design of screening instruments also needs to be guided by information from the fields of developmental and cognitive psychology on how children develop an emerging understanding of mathematics. Further, when developing assessment tools, mathematics educators' expertise should be tapped; this would result in screening tools that integrate knowledge bases in both fields. In this report the author describe the aspects of numerical proficiency that seem to emerge consistently as most important to assess in young students and specify areas that seem most fruitful to assess in early screening batteries. (Contains 2 tables.)

The report summarizes relevant high-quality research studies and synthesizes their findings to determine the relative effectiveness of interventions for struggling early readers. Additionally, the authors outline the implications of these findings for practice. Specific suggestions for implementing the findings are discussed in detail beginning on page 29. They are briefly listed as follows: (1) Extensive interventions can be effective even when provided by relatively low-cost implementers when appropriate training is provided and the interventions are fairly structured and delivered one-on-one or in groups of two or three students; (2) In studies that included a follow-up assessment, gains from early extensive interventions appear to be maintained over time, at least into second grade; (3) All of the effective early interventions examined in these studies shared four essential elements: training in phonological awareness, decoding, and word study; guided and independent reading of progressively more difficult texts; writing exercises; and engaging students in practicing comprehension strategies while reading text; (4) Other elements of these interventions that may be related to their success include group size (one-on-one, small group), the daily or near-daily frequency of the intervention sessions, and the early identification (in K or Grade 1) of students in need of intervention. These elements were evident though not directly tested in most relevant research studies; (5) The authors know considerably more about the effectiveness of early interventions than they do about interventions provided at later stages of development; and (6) Considerably more research is needed on students whose response to treatment is relatively low. Most of these implications apply best to students who are judged to be among the 20% to 25% most at risk for reading problems at the beginning of kindergarten, first, or second grade. As the research intervention literature extends to more severely disabled students, these conclusions may need to be modified. (Contains 3 tables.) [This paper was written with the assistance of Lynn Fuchs and Patricia Mathes.]

Professional development sessions are parts of a coherent, focused program designed to elicit a specific outcome. A systematic professional development plan for reading: (1) prepares teachers in all of the essential components of reading instruction; (2) provides information on instructional materials, programs, and strategies based on scientific reading research; (3) enhances teachers' ability to implement early intervention and remediation programs; and (4) facilitates the use of assessment data to inform instruction and meet the needs of all students, especially struggling readers. This report presents getting started on designing a systematic professional development plan for reading.