The complex language skills that are the focus of Common Core’s English language arts standards will be needed to excel in Common Core math and the new science standards. They are stressed, too, in California’s new language standards for English learners. Courtesy of Dr. Norma Sanchez of CTA’s Instruction and Professional Development Department and a presenter at CTA’s Summer Institute.
With an emphasis on developing verbal and analytical skills, the new Common Core standards will pose a big step up for most students. For English learners, who comprise a quarter of California’s children, it’ll seem more like a pole vault.
“Common Core is pushing us toward a higher level of achievement, and that depth is predicated on an ability to use language in sophisticated ways,” said Ben Sanders, director of standards, assessment and instruction for the 10 districts that formed the nonprofit California Office to Reform Education, or CORE.
Recognizing this will also be a unique opportunity and a heavy lift for teachers. CORE’s second annual Common Core summer conference for 450 teachers and administrators in San Francisco this month concentrated on teaching academic language – the shorthand for becoming fluent in the vocabulary, compound sentences and thought processes demanded to analyze texts,
