Although there are no Common Core State Standards that are specifically written for science content, science teachers will be using the fundamental skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking within their science content to help students become college and career ready.
One of the focuses of Common Core for English/Language Arts (ELA) is informational text. Interesting enough, as students transition from elementary to middle to high school, they encounter more informational text because of the core courses they are taking. The majority of the literary texts are only taught in the English and language arts classes. Therefore, students are required to read more informational text within their specific content areas. Further, students who are struggling readers are placed in reading classes in middle school and even high school. Is it only the job of the English and language arts teachers or the reading teachers to teach the students how to read informational texts?
Essentially, science teachers have challenged that struggling students that are taking reading classes in the middle school and high school are not engaging in "complex text" that is required in the science classrooms. These students can have such reading deficits that the reading teacher has to spend time on teaching the
Support All Students to Close the Achievement Gap
More than 16 million children in the United States live in poverty, which dramatically affects their ability to come to school ready to learn and thrive. The latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics' The Condition of Education 2013 (PDF) report shows that one in five schools was considered high poverty in 2011, an increase from one in eight schools in 2000.
Even the significant investment the United States has made in developing strong curricula and talented teachers is not adequate to ensure that all children can succeed.Research shows that only one-third of the achievement gap can be attributed to the quality of a student's in-school experiences. The other two-thirds is linked to the nonacademic factors that impact children, many of