Whitman Elementary - Tulsa Public Schools

Tulsa Public Schools
Program Management Office (PMO)
Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) Baseline Data of October 7, 2011
SECTION I
Whitman Elementary School
Reading and Common Core Standards :**
"The Common Core Standards aim to ensure that all students are "on track" to be both college and career ready. Research shows
that high school graduation no longer guarantees that students are ready for the postsecondary challenges that await them. While
the reading demands of college, the workforce and life in general have remained consistent or increased over time, K-12 texts and
reading tasks have decreased in complexity. The result is a significant gap between many students' reading abilities and the reading
demands they will likely encounter after graduation". http://www.lexile.com/using-lexile/lexile-measures-and-the-ccssi/
"In 2006, ACT, Inc., released a report called Reading Between the Lines that showed which skills differentiated those students who
equaled or exceeded the benchmark score (21 out of 36) in the reading section of the ACT college admissions test from those who
did not. Prior ACT research had shown that students achieving the benchmark score or better in reading—which only about half (51
percent) of the roughly half million test takers in the 2004–2005 academic year had done—had a high probability (75 percent chance)
of earning a C or better in an introductory, credit-bearing course in U.S. history or psychology (two common reading-intensive
courses taken by first-year college students) and a 50 percent chance of earning a B or better in such a course. Surprisingly, what
chiefly distinguished the performance of those students who had earned the benchmark score or better from those who had not was
not their relative ability in making inferences while reading or answering questions related to particular cognitive processes, such as
determining main ideas or determining the meaning of words and phrases in context. Instead, the clearest differentiator was
students’ ability to answer questions associated with complex texts. Students scoring below benchmark performed no better than
chance (25 percent correct) on four-option multiple-choice questions pertaining to passages rated as ―complex‖ on a three-point
qualitative rubric described in the report".
"These findings held for male and female students, students from all racial/ethnic groups, and students from families with widely
varying incomes. The most important implication of this study was that a pedagogy focused only on ―higher-order‖ or ―critical‖
thinking was insufficient to ensure that students were ready for college and careers: what students could read, in terms of its
complexity, was at least as important as what they could do with what they read."
Lexile Ranges and the Common Core Initiative:**
"The Common Core Standards advocate a "staircase" of increasing text complexity, beginning in grade 2, so that students can
develop their reading skills and apply them to more difficult texts. At the lowest grade in each band, students focus on reading texts
within that text complexity band. In the subsequent grade or grades within a band, students must "stretch" to read a certain
proportion of texts from the next higher text complexity band. This pattern repeats itself throughout the grades so that students can
both build on earlier literacy gains and challenge themselves with texts at a higher complexity level. all students should be reading at
the college and career readiness level by no later than the end of high school. To measure the attainment of higher complexity
levels of reading required for ,Common Core Standards the use of " qualitative scales of text complexity anchored at one end by
descriptions of texts representative of those required in typical first-year credit-bearing college courses and in workforce training
programs" is essential. Lexile measures and the Lexile ranges are widely recognized as a qualitative scale suited for such a
purpose. By incorporating Lexile Ranges as measures of student performance, schools can readily determine what text is
appropriate for each grade band and what should be considered "stretch" text."
MetaMetrics, a leader in the development and validation of the use of Lexile has realigned its Lexile ranges (Table 1) to match the
Standards’ text complexity grade bands and has adjusted upward its trajectory of reading comprehension development through the
grades to indicate that all students should be reading at the college and career readiness level by no later than the end of high
school.
Text Complexity Grade
Band in the Standards
K-1
2-3
4-5
6-8
9-10
11-C.C.R.
NA
Table I
Old Lexile Ranges
Lexile Ranges Aligned to
Common Core Expectations
NA
450-725 450-790
645-895 770-980
860-1010 955-1155
960-1115 1080-1305
1070-1220 1215-1355
Lexile Range Performance and College Career Readiness (CCR)
"Additional research has shown that the texts required for many postsecondary pursuits fall within a Lexile range of 1200L to 1400L,
while the text complexity of typical high school textbooks for grades 11 and 12 is about 1050L to 1165L. This research provides
valuable insight into the apparent disconnect when high school graduates encounter college and career texts. To put this gap in
perspective, a 250L difference between reader ability and text complexity can cause a drop from 75-percent comprehension to 50-
percent comprehension. This means that high school seniors who can successfully read twelfth-grade texts may enter college or the
workplace several months later and encounter texts that result in less than 50-percent comprehension."
** Excerpted from "Common Core State Standards for Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies Science and Technical Subjects :Appendix A"
Prepared by: Taylor L. Young, Ph.D. 5 11:01 AM2/16/2012