Zooming in on the new ELAR TEKS and the State Assessments Presented by Lora Darden and Caron Sharp

Our objectives today: Review the differences between the old and new ELA/R standards Discuss the upcoming state TAKS Test in terms of the ELA/R standards Provide an overview of state information regarding the new STAAR test (what has been proposed to date) Build test capacity with independent reading Learn a new reading strategy: RAP

What are the new strands in English Language Arts and Reading? Reading Reading Writing Writing Oral & Written Conventions Oral & Written Conventions Research Research Listening & Speaking Listening & Speaking Figure 19 Figure 19

Comprehension – Figure 19 Thinking about thinking while reading Thinking about thinking while reading Purposeful Purposeful Meaningful engagement with the text Meaningful engagement with the text Do lessons and activities help students develop metacognitive reading skills? Do lessons and activities help students develop metacognitive reading skills?

Both: Reading Writing Listening/Speaking 2009: Research Oral and Written Conventions Viewing and representing embedded in Reading and Writing strands 1997: Viewing and Representing Research and Oral and Written Conventions embedded in Reading and Writing The strands now and then…

K Fluency Vocabulary Theme/Genre Poetry Drama Fiction Literary/Nonfiction KS Statements - K - 12

KS Statements Research K - 12 K Research Plan Gathering Sources Synthesizing Information Organizing and Presenting Ideas

KS Statement Listening and Speaking K-12 K Listening Speaking Teamwork

KS Statements Writing K - 12 K Process Literary Texts Personal Experiences Expository/Procedur al Persuasive

KS Statements Oral and Written Conventions K - 12 K Conventions Handwriting, Capitalization, Punctuation Spelling

TAKS Update The assessment division at TEA has reviewed the questions in the test bank in light of the new curriculum. As a result, many questions have been removed from the "old test bank." The TAKS tests to be administered in and will contain items previously developed and field tested. The state assessment administered in 2010 and 2011 will be the TAKS test.

TAKS Update The state has determined that questions currently eligible for inclusion on the TAKS Test will continue to be eligible in the 2009–2010 and 2010–2011 school years (until the new tests are implemented). There will not be new types of test items on a state administered test until the stand-alone field tests in 2011 and the new STAAR assessment in 2012.

TAKS Update Teachers are required to teach with the new ELA & Reading (ELAR) standards beginning in the The test reports districts receive beginning this school year will be correlated to the new standards.

TAKS Update The state has done side-by- sides (for all reading/writing/ ELA grades) to show the correlation between the new TEKS and each TAKS objective. The state is in the very final stages of proofing and plan to post the charts this week.

TAKS Update If teachers are teaching the new TEKS, they are still covering everything included on TAKS (and then some). The state will not assess all the reading genres until the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) starts.

Building Test Capacity with Independent Reading

1.How much are our students reading? 2. Why aren’t most of our students reading? 3. How do we get our students to read? 3 Questions

If most of the books IN school are difficult, Some Common Sense and most of the technology OUT of school is enjoyable, what chance does reading have?

Remember For many readers, especially struggling ones, school may be the only place where these children have the opportunity to read for fun.

The Power of Reading by Stephen Krashen “Free voluntary reading (FVR) is one of the most powerful tools we have in language education.” - Stephen Krashen Krashen’s evaluation of 41 studies that implemented free voluntary reading (FVR) revealed that 93% of the readers in the study performed “as well or better than students who were engaged in traditional language arts programs” on standardized reading comprehension tests.

RAP Strategy Step 1: Read a paragraph (and underline important words or phrases in the paragraph). Step 2: Ask yourself, what is the most important who or what? Step 3: Put this (the big idea) in your own words in the margins.

RAP Strategy Tips Teach Students how to annotate in the margins effectively. Provide direct, explicit instruction. Model, model, model how to determine the key ideas in a paragraph.

Demonstration 1. Kid-friendly text 2. Adult learning text

Secondary Wiki arts.wikispaces.com/ Kid-friendly text