Connecting Common Core to College and Career Readiness

Malbert Smith III, Ph.D.

President, MetaMetrics Research Professor, UNC School of Education

Agenda      The Goal The Problem What is The Lexile ® Framework for Reading Bridging the Readiness Gap Bending the Curve

“If we can dramatically increase high school graduation rates, if we can dramatically increase the number of graduates who are college and career ready, that’s what this is about. Everything’s a means to that end. That’s the Holy Grail here. Are our students being prepared to be successful?” – Arne Duncan Education Week, December 9, 2009.

• • Quick Facts Each year, approximately 1.2 million students fail to graduate from high school, more than half of whom are from minority groups.

Percent of freshmen that enroll in at least one remedial course Community College 42% Four-Year Institution 20% Alliance for Excellent Education, February 2009 edition.

Students Obtaining Bachelor’s Degree in Eight Years

70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 58% 17% 0% No Remedial Course(s) Remedial Course(s)

Alliance for Excellent Education, February 2009 edition.

Students who enroll in a remedial reading course are 41 percent more likely to drop out of college. (NCES, 2004a)

“High school completion does not equal college readiness.” – Education Week

Gewertz, Catherine. “College-Readiness Program Hard to Gauge." Education Week 30.18 (2011): 1+. Print

Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies & Science

Appendix A: Findings   Students who fall short of ACT's college readiness benchmarks have the greatest difficulty with the test items involving the most complex text.

K-12 reading assignments have become much less demanding in the last half-century, with an especially large drop-off in high school expectations.

Weston, S. P. (2010). “The giant text complexity challenge inside the new literacy standards.” The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence

Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies & Science

Appendix A: Findings  College reading assignments have moved in the opposite direction, becoming a bit harder over the same fifty years.

 High school teachers commonly give students many kinds of support and coaching to help them figure out the material, but college teachers expect students to pull the knowledge from the text on their own, making the gap in practical ability even wider than the gap in the texts themselves.

Text Gap

Resources on Declining K-12 Text Complexity    

An Anlaysis of Textbooks in Relation to

Declining SAT Scores (Jeanne Chall, 1977)

Sourcebook Simplification and Its Relation to the

Decline in SAT-Verbal Scores (Hayes, 1997)

A Text Readability Continuum for

Postsecondary Readiness (Williamson, 2008)

The Common Core State Standards Initiative,

Appendix A (2010)

Common Core Appendix A

Distribution of Text Readability Measures for the Texas Higher Education

Distribution of Text Readability Measures for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (Box Plots: min, 25 th , 50 th , 75 th , max) 1600 1600 1500 1400 1300

Commended = 1490L

1200 1100 1000 900 800 700

THECB = 1170L Standard = 1015L

1500 1400 1300 1200 1100 1000 900 800 700 Community/Techncial College (N=37) Community College (N=48) Four-Year (N=52) All (N=137)

The Lexile Framework for Reading    An educational tool that links text and readers under a common metric-a Lexile measure Characterizes reader with a measure (used at the school level in all 50 states, and 21 states report Lexile measures statewide on their year-end assessments) and text with a measure (over 60,000 web sites, 115,000 fiction and nonfiction books, and 80 million articles) Allows educators to forecast the level of comprehension a reader is likely to experience with a particular assessment or text

Bending the Curve:

   Mitigate summer loss Utilize instructional tools and resources that promote differentiated instruction and deliberate practice (personalized learning platforms) Tools and resources on Lexile.com and Quantiles.com

Estimated Cumulative Differences in Language Experience by 4 Years of Age

50_

Professional Family

40_

Working-Class Family

30_ 20_ 10_

Welfare Family

12 24 36 Age of Child in Months 48

Mitigate Summer Learning Loss

Fairchild, R. McLaughlin, B. & Brady, J. (2006). Making the Most of Summer: A Handbook on Effective Summer Programming and Thematic Learning. Baltimore, MD: Center for Summer Learning.

Mitigate Summer Learning Loss

   Cumulative Effect of Summer Loss Summer Loss Research by Dr. James Kim “Find a Book”

White Paper: Stop Summer Academic Loss

“Find a Book” Search for books by Lexile measure, title, author, ISBN, or keyword.

keyword.

“Find a Book” Search for books by Lexile measure, title, author, ISBN, or Students who do not have a Lexile measure can use a quick and simple utility within “Find a Book” to estimate their Lexile range.

“Find a Book” Search for books by Lexile measure, title, author, ISBN, or keyword.

Utilize Instructional Tools & Resources that Promote Differentiated Instruction & Deliberate Practice  Research suggests that a novice develops into an expert through an intricate process that includes:  Targeted practice in which one is engaged in developmentally appropriate activities   Real-time corrective feedback that is based on one’s performance Intensive practice on a daily basis that provides results that monitor current ability   Distributed practice that provides appropriate activities over a long period of time (i.e., 5-10 years), which allows for monitoring growth towards expert performance Self-directed practice for those times when a coach, mentor or teacher is not available.

Glaser, 1996; Kellogg, 2006; Shea & Paull, 1996; Wagner & Stanovich, 1996

   Ideal Characteristics of Next Generation Instructionall Tools & Resources Assessment and instruction are blurred – to “mine the exhaust” of the instructional experience Computer-adaptive engines are applied to “targeted” instructional content Assessment engines connect day-to-day progress with year-to-year summative tests

Excerpted from MetaMetrics’ white paper, “Next Generation Assessments” (www.Lexile.com)

   Ideal Characteristics of Next Generation Instructional Tools & Resources Scoring, feedback and reporting are immediate Perspectives and monitoring are longitudinal across the development lifespan of the student for each skill The focus is student-centric, not teacher centric

Glaser, 1996; Kellogg, 2006; Shea & Paull, 1996; Wagner & Stanovich, 1996

Oasis

Implications of the Lexile Framework for Monitoring and Promoting Growth Through Deliberate Practice

“Nicholas Davis”

(Male; African-American; Free/Reduced Lunch) Words Read: 117,340 Items Taken: 1,415 Words Written: 7,149 Convention Items: 1,563

Oasis – Reading Data by Cohort – Corinth School District (MS)

Data from 2007-06-01 to 2011-06-01

Oasis: Usage Report by Grade

Oasis: Usage Report by Reader Lexile

Oasis: Usage Report By Category of Article

Increase the Diet of Non-Fiction Text  

Duke, Nell K. “The Real-World Reading and

Writing U.S. Children Need.” Phi Delta Kappan 91, no. 5 (February 2010): 68-71.

PIRLS 2001 International Report: IEA’s Study of Reading Literacy Achievement in

Primary Schools, Mullis, I.V.S., Martin, M.O., Gonzalez, E.J., & Kennedy, A.M. (2003), Chestnut Hill, MA: Boston College.

Percentage distribution of literary and informational passages

National Assessment Governing Board. Reading Framework for the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Washington, D.C.: American Institutes for Research, 2007.

How can we do better?

Anderson et al., 1988, Table 3, N=155

Estimating the Impact of Family and Home on Student Achievement

 Single-Parent Families  Parents Reading to Children Every Day  Hours Spent Watching Television  Frequency of School Absences

Educational Testing Service (www.ets.org)

Percentage of Children in Single Parent Families, by State, 2004

Courtesy of: Educational Testing Service ( www.ets.org

) * All states were listed. A sample of states were taken for this slide.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • Alaska 30% Delaware 35% Idaho 23% Iowa 24% Kansas 24% Minnesota 24% Montana 27% Nebraska 23% New Mexico 38% North Dakota 24% South Dakota 27% Vermont 26% West Virginia 29% Wyoming 27%

Percentage of Children Who Were Read to Every Day in the Past Week, 2003

Courtesy of: Educational Testing Service ( www.ets.org

) * All states were listed. A sample of states were taken for this slide.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • Alaska 50% Delaware 53% Idaho 49% Iowa 53% Kansas 51% Minnesota 57% Montana 51% Nebraska 49% New Mexico 43% North Dakota 47% South Dakota 47% Vermont 68% West Virginia 54% Wyoming 53%

Percentage of Eighth-Graders Watching Four or More Hours of Television per School Day, 2000

Courtesy of: Educational Testing Service ( www.ets.org

) * All states that took the NAEP were listed. A sample of states were taken for this slide.

• • • • • • • • • • Idaho 13% Kansas 13% Minnesota 10% Montana 8% Nebraska 14% New Mexico 18% North Dakota 10% Vermont 11% West Virginia 22% Wyoming 12%

Percentage of Eight-Graders Who Are Absent Three Days of More per Month, by State, 2005

Courtesy of: Educational Testing Service ( www.ets.org

) * All states were listed. A sample of states were taken for this slide.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • Delaware 24% Idaho 20% Iowa 18% Kansas 19% Minnesota 21% Montana 25% Nebraska 20% New Mexico 25% North Dakota 19% South Dakota 19% Vermont 19% West Virginia 22% Wyoming 27%

Parent-Teacher Meetings, School Websites, School Bulletins, etc.

 Emphasize the Importance of: – – – Attendance Restricting TV Reading / Writing at home

Courtesy of: http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/ch/1992/ch920330.gif

Contact Info: Malbert Smith III, Ph.D.

President, MetaMetrics Research Professor, UNC School of Education [email protected]