Specific Skill Instruction - Science

• CCSS Instructional Practice Guide for 6-12 Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects (Student Achievement Partners)

Reading Closely for Textual Details

• Text Talks: A First Step in Planning for Close Reading – LearnZillion Webinar (January 30, 2014)
• Five Close Reading Strategies to Support the Common Core: This educator blog posting outlines five simple strategies to help teach students how to critically read complex texts. (iteachicoachiblog.blogspot.com)

Writing

• Write Along – This collection of interactive video lessons from LearnZillion provides students guidance on how to improve their writing. Each video builds a targeted skill by modeling the process of revising or editing a flawed piece of writing while students keep up on a practice sheet. At the end, a formative assessment allows students to apply the skill to a new draft.     
• In Common: Effective Writing for All Students – This resource by The Vermont Writing Collaborative with Student Achievement Partners and CCSSO provides a range of examples of Common-Core aligned student work to demonstrate how a student’s writing skills can progress as they gain fluency across the three major types of Common Core writing: argument/opinion writing, informative/explanatory writing, and narrative writing. Four professional development activities to help build understanding of CCSS grade-level expectations for writing are also included.
• Authentic Products Aligned to Common Core Writing Standards – This document focuses specifically on the writing component of final products.  Ideally, these products are created for an authentic audience, one beyond the classroom and the teacher.  (Expeditionary Learning, Plaut and Passchier, January 2015) 

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use

• Academic Vocabulary in the Common Core: An Introduction (pbslearningmedia.org) 
• Academic Vocabulary in the Common Core: Disciplinary Vocabulary (pbslearningmedia.org)    
• Academic Word Finder: Grades K-12 – An online tool that helps to support teachers in identifying and teaching Tier 2 academic vocabulary within a text. Educators select and enter into the tool a passage from a complex text along with the grade level being taught. The tool then identifies the academic vocabulary for the selected grade, as well as words that fall into grade levels both above and below, and provides student-friendly definitions, parts of speech and sample sentences. (Student Achievement Partners)   
• Word Work and Word Play - A Practice Guide for Vocabulary Instruction in K-12 Classrooms: This guide provides a collection of strategies for both explicit and implicit instruction to promote academic vocabulary acquisition. (WeTeachNYC.org)
•  Exceptional Expressions for Everyday Events is a series of 32 flexible vocabulary development lessons each focusing on an everyday concept and brainstorming other words that describe the concept. Each activity can be used for a few minutes a day over the course of a week. This book is made available under a Creative Commons license and is completely free to download and use. (textproject.org)
• Generative Vocabulary Instruction article by Elfrieda H. Hiebert (Text Project & University of California, Santa Cruz)
• Unique Words Require Unique Instruction – Teaching Words in Stories and Informational Books by Elfrieda H. Hiebert (Text Project & University of California, Santa Cruz)
• TextProject Answers Frequently Asked Research Questions: Core Vocabulary (textproject.org)

Text Complexity

• Matching Readers with Targeted Text (lexile.com)
• 7 Actions that Teachers Can Take Right Now: Text Complexity (textproject.org)
• What Features Influence Text Complexity for Beginning and Struggling Readers?—Module 3 of the Text Project Teacher Development Series provides instructional insight into the skills beginning and struggling readers will need to read increasingly complex texts (textproject.org)
• Text Complexity and English Learners— Building Vocabulary by Elfrieda H. Hiebert (Text Project & University of California, Santa Cruz)
• Essential Insights into Text Complexity and the New Assessments: Three Articles from Reading Today by Elfrieda H. Hiebert (Text Project & University of California, Santa Cruz)
• TextProject Answers Frequently Asked Research Questions: Text Complexity (textproject.org)
  • Lexile framework for reading map [English]   [Spanish]
  • Lexile measures in the classroom [English]   [Spanish]

Please Note: The Lexile measure (text complexity) of a book is an excellent starting point for a student’s book selection. It’s important to understand that the book’s Lexile measure should not be the only factor in a student’s book selection process. Lexile measures do not consider factors such as age-appropriateness, interest, and prior knowledge. These are also key factors when matching children and adolescents with books they might like and are able to read. Lexile codes provide more information about developmental appropriateness, reading difficulty, and common or intended usage of books. For more information on Lexile codes, please visit Lexile.com. (from The Lexile Framework for Reading Map by MetaMetrics)