Core Progress for Reading - coloradoplc.org

1 core Progress for ReadingAn empirically validated learning progressionSeamless transition to the Common core State StandardsAdvanced Technology for Data-Driven Schools, core Progress , Renaissance Learning, the Renaissance Learning logo, STAR Early Literacy, STAR Enterprise, STAR Math, STAR Reading , and STAR Reading Enterprise are trademarks of Renaissance Learning, Inc., and its subsidiaries, registered, common law, or pending registration in the United States and other countries. 2011 by Renaissance Learning, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of publication is protected by and international copyright laws.

2 It is unlawful to duplicate or reproduce any copyrighted material without authorization from the copyright holder. For more information, contact:RENAISSANCE Box 8036 Wisconsin Rapids, WI 54495-8036(800) ..1 What are Learning Progressions? ..2 Mapping the Common core State Standards ..3 Development of core Progress for Reading ..4 The Backbone of STAR Reading Enterprise ..8 Bridging Assessment and Instruction with STAR Reading Enterprise ..9 Conclusion ..10 AppendicesAppendix A: Organization of Skills and Understandings within the Five Domains ..13 Appendix B: Progression of Skills for Identifying Author s Purpose.

3 14 FiguresFigure 1: core Progress for Reading ..4 Figure 2: Interrelationships between skills across domains ..5 Figure 3: Progression of grade-level skill statements ..6 Figure 4: What does a 700 STAR scaled score mean on the learning progression? ..10 Figure 5: Sample web-based portal search return and Instructional Planning Report ..12 TableTable 1: STAR Reading Enterprise item mapped to a third-grade level skill statement ..8ii1 IntroductionOver the last decade, much of the focus of educational reform in the United States has been on the creation and improvement of standards of learning.

4 A watershed moment of this movement was the 2010 publication of the Common core State Standards (CCSS) for learning in math and English language arts. As the CCSS mission statement explains, The Common core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. At the same time, within the field of education, the idea of learning progressions has received increasing attention (for example, Alonzo and Gearhart, 2006; Corcoran, Mosher, and Rogat 2009, 2011; Heritage, 2008, 2009; Leahy and Wiliam, 2011).

5 One of the reasons for this interest is the desire to provide descriptions of the incremental steps of learning that are more precise than are represented in current standards and that can be effectively used in guiding the design of instruction and assessment. While the Common core State Standards represent a clear step toward providing a more coherent pathway to meeting educational goals than many prior standards, by their nature, the CCSS do not describe a fully formed pathway along which students are expected to Progress . The next step, clarified and largely made possible by the Common core State Standards, is the development of fully formed learning progressions.

6 This paper describes core Progress for Reading , the learning progression developed by Renaissance Learning. It starts by explaining what learning progressions are, how they operate in relation to standards, and how they support instruction and assessment. The paper then describes a new empirically validated approach used to develop the learning progression. The next step, clarified and largely made possible by the Common core State Standards, is the development of fully formed learning Are Learning Progressions?Simply put, learning progressions are descriptions of how students typically advance their learning in a subject area.

7 Specifically, Pellegrino (2011, 9) defines learning progressions as descriptions of successively more sophisticated ways of thinking about key disciplinary concepts and practices across multiple grades which outline the intermediate steps toward expertise. Leahy and Wiliam (2011, 1) view learning progressions as descriptions of what it is that gets better when someone gets better at something (2011, 1). They reflect what is known from research and experience to tell a reasonable and comprehensive story of how students move from na ve understanding to mastery in a domain (Anderson 2008b as cited in Heritage 2011).

8 Masters and Forster (1997, 1) describe progressions as a picture of what it means to improve in an area of learning. Confrey and colleagues suggest that learning progressions assume a progression of cognitive states that move from simple to complex and, while not necessarily linear, the progression is not random, but rather is sequenced and ordered as expected tendencies or likely probabilities of how learning develops (Confrey and Maloney, 2010). Finally, Heritage (2011, 3) suggests that learning progressions provide descriptions of how students learning of important concepts and skills in a domain develops from its most rudimentary state through increasingly sophisticated states over a period of schooling.

9 Inherent in these views of progressions is the idea of a coherent and continuous pathway along which students move incrementally through states of increasing competence in a domain. Every incremental state builds on and integrates the previous one as students accrue new levels of expertise with each successive step in the progression. It is important to note, however, that while progressions may provide clear descriptions of how learning develops in a domain, they are not developmentally inevitable. Rather, they are dependent on good curriculum and instruction (National Research Council, 2007; Pellegrino, 2011).

10 As Herman (2006, 122) observes, whether and how children are able to engage in particular learning performances and the sequence in which they are able to do so are very much dependent on previous opportunities to learn. The benefit of progressions is that they lay out a continuum to guide teaching and learning over time so that student competence in the domain can be advanced coherently and continuously. Several views of how learning progressions can be developed have been set forth (for example, Alonzo and Steedle, 2008; Anderson, 2008a; Corcoran, Mosher, and Rogat, 2009; Confrey and Maloney, 2010; Pellegrino, 2011; Smith et al.)