Literacy Is A Fundamental Basis Of A Student 's Academic Success

Becoming literate opens the doors to more educational and employment opportunities. In our increasingly complex and rapidly changing technological world, it is essential that individuals

It is important to have a successful education, but common core will not only affect the schools it will also affect how students learn. According to Applebee, “From my perspective, the CCSS offers a strong and well-intentioned vision of the knowledge and skills needed by a college-and career-ready high school graduate.” (Applebee, 2013, pg. 25-33). With the world constantly changing in order to be successful is to have the fundamental structure built up for the individual. A successful person is usually successful because of the knowledge they have gathered. However, CCSS (Common Core State Standards) focuses on the main parts of education, reading, writing, and mathematics. Teaching common core is not simple to children or teenagers. Often each individual has a different way of learning. With common core, every individual is paced at the same

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) was first implemented in 2010, nine years after I graduated from high school. Although I wasn’t personally affected by the new academic standards, it has a direct impact on the current and future generation of leaders, innovators, and world changers including my future children. The initial purpose of the Common Core Standards is to set high-quality learning goals designed to prepare students to be college and career ready. Given the current controversies surrounding CCSS, studies have shown that although the intent was to benefit students in the long-run it may actually be hindering their mathematical and reading skills. To further explore the arguments behind the Common Core initiative, I will

The Common Core has been developed as a nationwide measurement for student progress. Officially launched in 2009 as a federal funding bill, the standards identify skills that every student residing in the United States should master in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics from kindergarten through 12th grade (Gewertz, 2015). The Common Core itself is not a curriculum, however, it identifies rigorous objectives that must be met by a school’s curriculum. The purpose is to initiate a deeper focus on developmental learning by using interdisciplinary instruction. This redefines the way that students learn because their progress is no longer assessed on the outcome of their performance, but by the process that has allowed them to reach the

Literacy is fundamental to all areas of learning from an early age, as it unlocks access to the wider curriculum. Being literate increases opportunities for pupils in all aspects of life and lays the foundations for lifelong learning and work.

In the state of South Carolina, the high school English standards contain six parts: inquiry-based literacy, reading literary text, reading informational text, writing, communication, and disciplinary literacy. The South Carolina Common Core Reading Standards (2015) explicitly state for students in high school “Reading, writing, communicating, thinking critically, and performing in meaningful, relevant ways within and across disciplines are essential practices for accessing and deeply understanding content (pp. 107).” Additionally, these standards, if followed by the classroom teacher, creates students who are college and career ready by challenging them to participate in interdisciplinary study and curriculum integration through real-world

According to CMS Superintendent Ann Clark regarding literacy as our North Star, it “is the most important skill we teach. Literacy is the foundation for academic success from pre-kindergarten through high school.” Literacy is key to achieving academic success and the responsibility of literacy encompasses every educator and discipline. Many media coordinators have been trained in Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and district adopted reading initiatives, such as Balanced Literacy and Reading Apprenticeship. However, most struggle with linking our programs with literacy initiatives. According to the 2015 Nation’s Report Card percentages of fourth graders and eighth graders reading on grade level continues to decline, especially among urban school districts (nationsreportcard.gov). “That is, when reading grade appropriate text these students cannot extract the general meaning or make obvious connections between the text and their own experiences or make simple inferences from the text. In other words, they cannot understand what they have read.” (National Assessment of Educational Progress). And, furthermore, principals are trading media coordinator positions at an alarming rate as evidenced by the more than 30 schools which no longer

Adopted by forty-two out states in 2010, the Common Core State Standard Initiative strives to provide an educational structure which details what English language arts and mathematics should be taught from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The initiative is the federal government’s attempt to ensure all students who graduate from high school are adequately prepared to enter a two or four year college or the workforce. Despite their intentions, the Common Core has caused much controversy in the education community. The thought behind Common Core is very valid and has the potential to help students, however changes must be made to unrealistic standards and wordy statements. Common Core must first be rewritten so that the language is clear and can be easily understood by the general public. Next ask experts on childhood development and elementary school teachers to review the standards and rewrite standards they see as unneeded or irrelevant as well as unrealistic.

The lack of educational benchmarks and standardization in the United States of America, USA is disjointed and subpar leaving students ill prepared to enter the workforce and college. As evidenced by the persistent problem of students graduating and passing required exit exams in high school; yet, they still needed remediation upon entry to college. The Common Core is good because it provides a set of age appropriate learning goals and sets a national high-quality academic standard for Math and English to prepare students for college and career readiness. In essence, the Common Core defines what a student should know and be able to do at different grade levels.

Structuring on the best of existing state standards, the Common Core State Standards provide a clear and reliable learning goal to help prepare students for college, career, and life. The standards clearly demonstrate what students are expected to learn at each grade level, so that every parent and teacher can understand and support their learning. From Kindergarten through 8th grade, grade-by-grade standards exist in English language arts/literacy and mathematics. From 9th through 12th grade, the standards are grouped into grade sets of 9th through 10th grade standards and 11th through 12th grade standards. Moreover, the CCSS stress the importance of using primary texts in the classroom to build literacy, along with many other things. While the standards set grade-specific goals, they do not define how the standards should be taught or which materials should be used to support students. States and districts know that there will need to be a range of supports in place to guarantee that all students, including those with special needs and English language learners, can master the standards. It is up to the states to outline the full range of supports appropriate for these students.

In chapter seven of Pathways to the Common Core by Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman (2012), the authors explain that teachers often dismiss the Common Core writing standards as unrealistically high demands for their students, but clarify that through examination of the standard in a horizontal fashion, the standards are ultimately realistic and attainable. Calkins, Ehrenworth, and Lehman encourage teachers to begin with reading the kindergarten standards (no matter which grade level you teach) and look at the trajectory through next grade levels. The chapter continues by explaining that viewing the standards in this fashion and collaborating with teachers across grade levels will not only create a more realistic view of the standard, but allow students to meet the learning objectives through smaller steps across each grade level (Calkins, Ehrenworth & Lehman, 2012).

Integrating Common Core State Standards (CCSS) into the curriculum at elementary schools has created a more rigorous learning atmosphere for children. One of the main components that the Common Core State Standards, take pride in is that they are, ?Based on rigorous content and application of knowledge through higher-order thinking skills? (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). These standards have been created so that students are more prepared for college. Overall, this is a great idea. There are many students that get to college and do not know how to critically think or even write properly using academic language. The problem that arises is there are students that are already behind, what happens to them now that we are integrating these higher level standards?

The article “Relations Between the CCSS and RTI in Literacy and Language” begins with explaining that there is decline in learning literacy and literacy knowledge in students. Response to Intervention (RTI) and Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (CCSS-EL) are considered the solution to the literacy problem (Wixson, 2012). The authors of the article go in to great detail to explain RTI and CCSS and there collaboration in the process of improving literacy and language.

In the generation of technology children such as I do not know all of our literacy skills yet. It used to be that when kids were growing up they finished all of their literacy skills in 4th. Grade. Right now we are still learning what then would be considered basic or easy just one generation ago. In this world overcome with technology we still need our literacy skills such as handwriting, reading, and comprehension. Technology is exposed to kids at the age like 7 or 8 now and it causes huge distractions from learning. All of these are important and so many kids at my age have not even gotten close to mastering all of these skills and we must learn them before it’s too late, before we enter the real world.

Is it important to be a literate person in today’s society? The ability to function well depends on whether or not a person is literate and can comprehend what is going on around them. If a person doesn’t have the basic ability to read, they will feel the stress and dependency on others because of their illiteracy. Illiteracy is a big problem because without the knowledge of reading, illiterate people can’t perform daily tasks and responsibilities in daily life. When all it would take is a mere two minutes out of your day, don’t you think illiteracy can be helped or even extinguished?