Program Information
- ISBN
- 978-1-68246-439-7
- Copyright Type
- Proprietary
ELAR
Grade 4Publisher: Center for the Collaborative Classroom
Copyright: 2018
The quality review is the result of extensive evidence gathering and analysis by Texas educators of how well instructional materials satisfy the criteria for quality in the subject-specific rubric. Follow the links below to view the scores and read the evidence used to determine quality.
Section 1. English Language Arts and Reading Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) and English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) Alignment
Grade |
TEKS Student % |
TEKS Teacher % |
ELPS Student % |
ELPS Teacher % |
Grade 3 |
81.54% |
81.54% |
N/A |
100.00% |
Grade 4 |
85.71% |
85.71% |
N/A |
100.00% |
Grade 5 |
80.95% |
80.95% |
N/A |
100.00% |
Section 2. Texts
Section 3. Literacy Practices and Text Interactions
Section 4. Developing and Sustaining Foundational Literacy Skills
Section 5. Supports for All Learners
Section 6. Implementation
Section 7. Additional Information
Grade | TEKS Student % | TEKS Teacher % | ELPS Student % | ELPS Teacher % |
---|---|---|---|---|
Grade 4 | 85.71% | 85.71% | N/A | 100% |
The materials include a diverse variety of high-quality texts that include increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and multicultural texts. The texts cover a wide range of student interests.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
In Being A Writer, there are many high-quality texts.
Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold is part autobiographical and part fictional. It is the winner of a Caldecott Award. It is set in Harlem in 1939 and includes symbolic and historical references central to African-American culture. The main character’s flight over her world and the beautiful, textured artwork make this text enjoyable.
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen is the winner of a Caldecott Award. It tells the story of a child and father who go owling. The topic of sharing a special experience with a parent is relatable to grade 4 students. The text includes enjoyable language and imagery, such as “Our feet crunched over the crisp snow” and “The moon made his face into a silver mask.” The autobiography About Jane Yolen provides additional information on the author.
Tea with Milk is a memoir written by Caldecott Award recipient Allen Say. It highlights the cultural differences that the main character experiences as a Japanese American, first in San Francisco and later in Japan. The cultural differences between Japan and the United States and the challenges experienced by someone who moves from one country to another are engaging for students.
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble is a fictional picture book written by William Steig. It is a Caldecott Award winner and tells the story of a donkey who finds a magic pebble that grants his wishes. The donkey’s desire to have his wishes granted and the message that there is a lot to be thankful for in our everyday lives will engage students.
In Making Meaning, there are many high-quality texts.
Shattering Earthquakes by Louise and Richard Spilsbury is an expository nonfiction text that uses multiple text features to describe the causes and destructive consequences of earthquakes. Photographs from earthquakes around the world help students understand how natural disasters can affect communities and their people.
A Bad Case of Stripes by award-winning author and illustrator David Shannon is a fictional picture book about a girl named Camila Cream who becomes completely covered in bright stripes that only disappear when she learns to be herself. The text includes rich language and illustrations, and its theme of self-acceptance is relatable to students in grade 4.
A Picture Book of Amelia Earhart by David A. Adler is a narrative nonfiction text that draws readers into the life of the famous female pilot Amelia Earhart. The story depicts Earhart’s adventure-filled childhood in Kansas to her mysterious disappearance after becoming the first woman to ever fly across the Atlantic Ocean alone. Colorful illustrations and an anecdotal style of writing are engaging for students at this level.
“Gluskabe and Old Man Winter” from Pushing Up the Sky: Seven Native American Plays for Children by Joseph Bruchac is a drama that is based on a tale from the Abenaki people describing how the seasons came to be.
While there is little traditional literature provided, the literary and informational texts address all of the genres outlined in the TEKS. The materials also include print and graphic features for a variety of texts.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
In the “Collaborative Literacy Core Titles PDF Overview,” the chart demonstrates the percentages of genres represented in the various resources. The genres in Making Meaning are as follows: 13% of read-aloud texts are poetry, 31% are fiction, 54% are nonfiction, and 2% are drama. In Being a Writer, 20% of texts read aloud are poetry, 17% are fiction, and 63% are nonfiction.
Examples of literary texts include but are not limited to:
Examples of informational texts include but are not limited to:
Examples of print and graphic features include but are not limited to:
In Making Meaning, Unit 2, there are excerpts from Shattering Earthquakes by Louise and Richard Spilsbury. There are text features such as map key, photographs, captions, bold type, and text boxes with quotations. Later in the same unit, there is Nineteenth-Century Migration to America by John Bliss. There are chapter titles and a table of contents to locate information.
In Making Meaning, Unit 7, students utilize text features in the article “School Uniforms, No Way!” by the Center for the Collaborative Classroom to ascertain the author’s opinion within the text.
In Making Meaning, Unit 9, students utilize text features noted in their reading comprehension strategies chart to monitor for meaning as they read.
In the Being A Writer functional writing unit, there are procedural texts such as “Carrot Salad,” “Carrot and Raisin Salad,” and “Expressions” that contain illustrations, photographs, and captions.
In Being A Writer, students read A Visit to Italy by Rachael Bell. This text includes pronunciation of Italian words and phrases.
The texts increase in complexity throughout the year based on quantitative measures. The publisher provides quantitative and qualitative analyses of the texts used throughout the materials.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
The Introduction to the Making Meaning Volume 1 Teacher’s Manual includes information about the leveling systems used throughout the materials. There are resources about the Fountas & Pinnell and Lexile Framework for Reading leveling systems, and the resources contain more information about each system. Titles range in difficulty from 540L to 1240L, which is within the range for grade 4 students. On the Center for the Collaborative Classroom website, under General Resources, there is a list of core titles and accompanying reading levels, both Lexile and Fountas & Pinnell. There is a Collaborative Literacy Text Complexity Analysis document that employs the Standard’s Model of Text Complexity to provide a quantitative, qualitative, and reader and task analysis of each text. Qualitative analyses of texts utilize guidance from Achieve the Core.
In the Fiction Unit of Being A Writer, students read Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, written at Lexile 630L and Fountas & Pinnell Level O. The Text Structure and Language Features are Moderately Complex, while Meaning is Very Complex, and Knowledge Demands are Moderately Complex. The Final Evaluation is Moderately Complex.
In Making Meaning, Unit 1, students read The Old Woman Who Named Things by Cynthia Rylant with a Lexile level AD760L. A Fountas & Pinnell level is not provided for this text. The Text Structure and Language Features are Slightly Complex, while Meaning is Very Complex, and Knowledge Demands are Slightly Complex. The Final Evaluation is Moderately Complex.
In Making Meaning, Unit 4, students read The Bat Boy & His Violin by Gavin Curtis with a Lexile level AD700L and a Fountas & Pinnell level of Q. The Text Structure and Language Features are as Moderately Complex, while Meaning is Very Complex, and Knowledge Demands are Moderately Complex. The Final Evaluation is Moderately Complex.
In Making Meaning, Unit 6, students read Coming to America by Betsy Maestro with a Lexile level AD890L and a Fountas & Pinnell level of O. The Text Structure, Language Features, and Meaning are Moderately Complex, while Knowledge Demands are Very Complex. The Final Evaluation is Moderately Complex.
The resources include numerous text-dependent questions. The texts are grouped thoughtfully, providing opportunities for students to make connections and discuss big themes within and across texts.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
In Being a Writer, Unit 1, students listen to the book Wizzil and answer the question, “If you were going to write a story like the book Wizzil, what might you turn yourself into and what might happen?” In the same unit, students listen to the nonfiction text Everything Reptile by Cherie Winner. The teacher asks, “How is this book different from Desert Voices in how it tells us about animals?” Students compare and contrast the information and style of the nonfiction text to the lyrical verses of Desert Voices by Byrd Baylor and Peter Parnall.
The materials include frequent opportunities to answer text-dependent questions. In Unit 2 of Making Meaning, students use text features to better understand the information in an expository nonfiction book. In Week 1 of the unit, students read Shattering Earthquakes by Louise and Richard Spilsbury and discuss questions such as, “What did you learn in the part of the book you just heard? [pause] Turn to your partner.” The teacher rereads the quote “The worst earthquakes in the world cause terrible destruction.” and asks the class the question, “What evidence does the author provide in the text to support that statement?”
The materials provide opportunities for students to make connections. In Making Meaning, Unit 2, students use text evidence to support understanding. They read the book Earthquakes and Excerpt from Shattering Earthquakes. They compare what they read by answering the text-dependent questions, “How is the information in the firsthand account the same as the information in the secondhand account? How is it different? What in the text makes you think that?”
In Being a Writer, Unit 2, the teacher reads aloud “More About Allen Say” by Stephanie Loer. The teacher asks students to think, pair, share about the question “What did you learn about Allen Say’s writing process? Why do you think it takes so long for him to create a book?” This question is text-dependent and integrates retelling (4.7D) and inferring (4.6F).
In Making Meaning, Unit 6, the teacher reads aloud Amelia’s Road by Linda Jacobs Altman. Students make inferences and provide clues from the passage that helped them infer. The teacher asks, “What can you infer (figure out) about how Amelia is feeling from this passage? What do you think Amelia is thinking at that moment? Why does that make sense? What do Amelia’s actions tell you about how she feels?” These questions are text-specific and require the student to make an inference (4.6F) and provide text evidence to support their answer (4.7C).
In Unit 6 of Making Meaning, students make inferences as they hear a narrative nonfiction story and explore social and ethical issues. The read and discuss A Picture Book of Harriet Tubman, by David Adler. Discussion questions such as, “After Harriet escaped, she said, ‘I had a right to liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other.’ What do you think she meant?” and “What do you admire about Harriet Tubman? What can we learn from her life that might help us in our own lives?” A “Teacher Note” in the sidebar encourages teachers to use these questions to facilitate a discussion of social and ethical themes as well as to help students make personal connections.
The materials provide opportunities for students to reflect on big ideas. In Making Meaning, Unit 7, students synthesize information to create new understanding. Students review the article “Virtual Worlds: Community in a Computer” and have a class discussion about what they learned about playing video games. They participate in a class discussion about the pros and cons of video games using questions that push for big picture thinking, such as, “What are some of the problems that come from playing video games?”
In Making Meaning, Unit 7, students generalize the importance of using reading strategies such as rereading. The teacher asks, “Why is it important to stop reading and ask yourself if you understand what you read? Which comprehension strategy do you find the most helpful when you do not understand something you’re reading? Why?” This pushes students to explain reading strategies at a conceptual level.
In Being a Writer during the personal narrative unit, the teacher reads aloud “First Days” and “Mama Sewing” by Eloise Greenfield. The teacher asks questions to determine the big ideas from both texts, such as, “What do we find out about Elise Greenfield’s childhood from these short pieces?”). Students transfer their understanding of narratives to their own writing by drafting a personal narrative.
The materials contain questions and tasks that require students to analyze the language and craft employed by the author. Students make inferences and draw conclusions about the author’s purpose in a variety of texts in both Making Meaning and Being a Writer. Stated and implied author’s purpose between texts happens through the thoughtful sequencing and pairing of texts and through partner and class discussions. There are also opportunities for students to analyze how the author’s choices and language impact meaning.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
In Unit 2 of Making Meaning, students use various text features of expository texts to gain information and comprehend. In Week 2, students read excerpts from Nineteenth-Century Migration to America and write in response to the prompt “Five things I learned from the text features in the excerpt.” Students share their writing and discuss the question “Why do you think the author included the map?” An extension activity explains that authors often include other sources where readers can find out more about a topic. Students explore the websites from the text and compare the texts by discussing, “How was reading the [internet article] different from reading the book? How was it the same?” In this way, they analyze how authors’ choices communicate meaning.
In Unit 4 of Making Meaning, students read The Bat Boy & His Violin and discuss, “What can we learn from Reginald’s story that we might be able to apply to our own lives?” The teacher informs students that stories often have themes or messages that authors want readers to think about that might be applied to their own lives. The lesson includes an extension to informally discuss cultural settings while asking, “What details does the author include in the story to help the reader understand the ways in which black people were treated during this time?” Here, students draw conclusions about the author's purpose and study the language in the text to support their understanding.
In Unit 5 of Making Meaning, students focus on making inferences from fiction and poetry. Students learn to use a double-entry journal to record inferences about the main character of “When We First Met” – Damon and his feelings. Then, in the other column, students record the clues that lead them to this inference. On the next day, students read another poem about the same character, “Second Son.” Students discuss the meaning of the language in the poem and why the poet titled the poem “Second Son.” They support their responses with textual evidence.
In Unit 8 of Making Meaning, students learn how to determine important ideas and summarize. In Week 3, students reread two excerpts from the texts In My Own Backyard by Judi Kurjian and Flight by Robert Burleigh. Students respond to the question, “What clues in the text help you recognize that this story is being told from the first-person/third-person point of view?” A follow-up question asks students to discuss which is more interesting and why. In this way, students analyze how the author’s choices impact meaning.
In the Poetry Unit of Being a Writer, students read and discuss “Windy Nights” by Rodney Bennett. Students listen to the poem read aloud with their eyes closed and discuss, “What do you notice about how this poet writes about the wind?” Students reread the poem aloud with the teacher as a whole group activity, paying special attention to the sound words make. Afterward, students have a discussion about the author’s choice in using certain words, such as in the question, “Why do you think the poet included so many words that have the /r/ sound in this poem?” There is a “Students Might Say” section, and the term alliteration is defined and discussed.
In the Expository Nonfiction unit of Being a Writer, the class reads multiple texts about different countries, including Australia by Xavier Niz, Mexico by Colleen Sexton, and Kenya: A Question and Answer Book by Sarah Louise Kras. While reading about Kenya, the teacher asks, “What are some different ways the author provides information about Kenya in this book?” The students discuss different ways the author communicated information through words and text features.
There are opportunities for vocabulary instruction within the Making Meaning and Being A Writer units. There is a vocabulary guide for teachers with a year-long plan for vocabulary, including specific lessons from vocabulary found in the read-aloud texts themselves. The materials provide scaffolds and supports to guide teachers with differentiating for all learners.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
The grade 4 Making Meaning materials include two volumes of a Vocabulary Teaching Guide that provide a year-long plan to build academic vocabulary. These guides provide 30 weeks of vocabulary instruction that combine direct instruction in word meanings with activities requiring students to think deeply about the words and apply their meaning in conversation and across learning contexts.
The Vocabulary Teaching Guide focuses on four to six Tier 2 words per week. According to the work of Isabel Beck at the University of Pittsburgh, these are words students are “not likely to see frequently but that educated adults regularly use in their speech and writing that appear in a wide range of texts students might encounter.” If a text does not contain six vocabulary words, there are words that could be applied to the text, labeled as concept words. The vocabulary teaching units include additional read-aloud texts, digital word cards, print and digital teaching guides with links to professional development media and lesson resources.
In Week 3 of the Vocabulary Teaching Guide, students formally learn to use context to determine word meanings. Teachers introduce and define slight, topple, and severe. Teachers read a portion of the week’s read-aloud text Shattering Earthquake by Louise and Richard Spilsbury and emphasize the sentence containing the word slight. The teacher defines the word and asks students, “What is a slight change you might make to this picture?” Students discuss in partnerships and have the prompt, “A slight change I might make is…” The teacher defines the words topple and severe within the context of the read-aloud text.
The materials also include scaffolds and supports for teachers to differentiate vocabulary development for all learners. For example, in Week 10 of the Vocabulary Teaching Guide, the teacher defines and discusses ceremony. Both an “ELL Note” and a “Teacher Note” in the sidebar provide support for teachers as they differentiate this new vocabulary word. The ELL Note informs teachers that the Spanish cognate of ceremony is ceremonia. While discussing the question, “When have you been to a ceremony? What was the purpose of the ceremony?” in pairs, the Teacher Note helps struggling students with alternate ways of asking this question. There are questions for teachers to ask, such as “When have you been to a ceremony to celebrate a graduation?” and “When have you seen a ceremony on TV or heard or read about a ceremony?” There are sentence frames to support students’ use of this new vocabulary word.
Within the Vocabulary Teaching Guide lessons, there are “you might say” prompts that give sample language for teachers to use if a student struggles to understand or use a new word. For example, in Week 18, as students discuss the term ambitions, a prompt says, “I love to cook. One of my ambitions is to learn to cook dishes from countries around the world. I also like to run, and my ambition is to run a marathon….”
In Week 25 of the Vocabulary Teaching Guide, students learn the word dense, as used in Flight by Robert Burleigh. After reading the section of text where the word appears, the teacher defines the word. There are synonyms for the word. There are two ELL Notes in the sidebar of this lesson. The first note provides the Spanish cognate of dense (denso/a). The second note guides teachers to use the illustration in the text as a visual support for English Language Learners (ELL) that may struggle with verbal definitions.
Guidance for teaching words appears in Making Meaning, Unit 1, specifying that as the teacher reads aloud, they clarify vocabulary by “briefly defining it, rereading it in context, and continuing.” For instance, in Making Meaning, Unit 1, the suggested vocabulary for all students while reading Song and Dance Man by Karen Ackerman includes the word steep. The suggested ELL vocabulary includes words such as rack, gliding, and glances. Suggested ELL vocabulary also appears Being a Writer. For example, during the Poetry unit, students read Lawnmower by Valerie Worth. In addition to teaching the word grinds for all students, ELL suggested vocabulary includes lawnmower and spitting.
Materials include clearly defined procedures and protocols for students to engage in independent reading for sustained periods of time. There are supports to teach students the skills they need to be successful during independent reading. Independent Daily Reading is built into daily lesson structures, and the materials provide protocols for planning individual conferences that create accountability and help students set goals.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
The materials provide a plan for students to select texts and read independently for a sustained period of time. There are optional Individualized Daily Reading (IDR) mini-lessons within Appendix A of the Making Meaning Teacher's Manual to help support independent reading procedures. Lesson topics include “Selecting Appropriately Leveled Text” and “Self-monitoring and Using Fix-up Strategies.” There is guidance for setting up a classroom library and building stamina for reading to teachers in the Introduction of the Making Meaning Teacher’s Manual.
There are Individual Comprehension Assessments in the Assessment Resource Book to support teachers as they confer and assess students’ independent reading. The Assessment Resource has a guide for each unit’s IDR conferences. The guide is prescriptive with prompts for the teacher to ask the student and prompts for the teacher to reflect on after observing student reading. The guide tells the teacher what to do if a student is showing mastery or where to stop the conference if a student is showing difficulty. For example, in Unit 2, the teacher interviews the student about their independent reading book. The teacher listens to the student read a few pages and then asks, “What is the part you just read about?” In this case, the reflection question asks, “Is the student able to tell what the passage is about?” The teacher records their observations in the “Notes” column on the record sheet. If the student is successful, the teacher continues to step 3 of the IDR Assessment. If the student has difficulty, the teacher may repeat step 2 but have the student read the passage silently. Teachers use the IDR Conference Notes as well as the IDR Assessment sheets to calculate an Independent Reading score. These end-of-unit reflections help guide teachers’ future IDR conferences. For example, in Unit 6, the Individual Comprehension Assessment reflection questions include, “What did you work on with this student during the unit’s IDR conferences?” and “what might you focus on during the next unit’s IDR conferences?”
There is guidance to teachers to foster independent reading throughout the year. The introduction of the Making Meaning Teacher’s Manual describes the role of independent reading within the lesson structure. IDR is introduced in Unit 1, Week 1. During this week, students learn the procedures of IDR and how to find books that are at the appropriate reading level for each student. The goal of IDR is for students to read independently for 30 minutes. There is guidance for teachers to begin with a shorter amount of time, depending on students’ attention and engagement. There is a “Teacher Note” with a QR code in the sidebar for the first IDR lesson. The link is a video to support teachers in setting up procedures and expectations. In Week 2 of Unit 1, students begin logging entries into their Reading Logs.
In Unit 2 of Making Meaning, students learn how to monitor their own comprehension when reading independently. In Week 1, teachers support independent reading through the introduction of IDR Conferences. These one-on-one conferences help teachers get to know their students as readers and help assess individual students’ comprehension. There is a Resource Sheet for IDR Conferences in the Assessment Resource Book with questions such as, “Tell me about your favorite books or authors. What do you like about them?” and “What do you do best as a reader?” In Unit 3, they discuss strategies they can use to assist in comprehension. The plan continues to build throughout the year. Going forward, more comprehension strategies are introduced, and teachers focus on those during independent reading conferences. For example, in Unit 4, Wondering/Questioning, students record their questions on sticky notes as they read.
The materials provide support for students to develop composition skills across various genres, including literary, information, argumentative, and correspondence. They also provide opportunities for students to write for a variety of purposes and audiences.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
First, the materials provide students opportunities to write literary texts to express their ideas and feelings about real or imagined people, events, and ideas. In Volume 1 of Being a Writer, students write a personal narrative that focuses on a single event from their own lives. The class reads excerpts from Childtimes: A Three-Generation Memoir by Eloise Greenfield. Students engage in a “Think, Pair, Share” with a partner to discuss what memories they could write about. Students write independently for 20‒30 minutes about a memory. The class shares their writing. Throughout the unit, students continue to draft and finalize a piece of narrative writing.
In Volume 2 of Being a Writer, students write poems about topics of interest while exploring sensory details. Students explore sound, imagery, and placement of words and letters within poems they read and discuss. Students learn to use simile, personification, and onomatopoeia in their own poems and explore line length and stanzas within poems they read and discuss. Students use poems such as “Feeling Ill” by Michael Rosen and “Crickets” by Myra Cohn Livingston as mentor texts.
The materials also provide students opportunities to write informational texts. In Volume 2 of Being a Writer, students write expository nonfiction texts about countries. Students examine mentor texts to guide their writing, such as A Visit to Italy by Rachael Bell, Australia by Xavier Niz, and Mexico by Colleen Sexton. After reading, students analyze text structures and the author's craft to apply it in their own writing. In this unit, students also practice research skills like taking notes, categorizing information by subtopic, and conducting informational searches on the internet, which authors of informational texts sometimes do.
Furthermore, the materials provide opportunities to write argumentative texts to influence the attitudes or actions of a specific audience on specific issues. During the Opinion Writing unit of Being A Writer, students read several texts with differing opinions on the same viewpoint, such as “Bugs Are Creepy” and “Insects Are Amazing.” After reading, the class discusses the author’s position, purpose, and audience. Students engage in 20‒30 minutes of independent writing, where they begin to draft a persuasive essay. Students identify the audience and purpose for their writing as well as use reasons to support their opinions. They learn how to craft clear and direct openings and conclusions that restate their opinion and use transitional words and phrases to connect opinions and reasons. As the unit progresses, students finalize their argumentative topic.
The materials provide opportunities to write correspondence. At the conclusion of the Expository Nonfiction unit of Being a Writer, students practice letter writing by writing a letter home about what they learned about nonfiction. The teacher reviews elements of a letter and models writing a sample letter with the class. Students proofread their letters, which are sent home attached to their published informational essays.
In Week 3 of the Functional Writing unit of Being a Writer, students publish the directions for a game. Students then write a persuasive letter to their classmates about why they should want to play this game. There are teacher models for writing a letter, for the letter’s format, including date, salutation, closing, and signature. As a class activity, the students share their letters.
In Unit 9 of Being a Writer, students review their writing from the year. Students also review letter structure such as date, greeting, and closing. They write letters to next year’s class about what it means to be an author and reflect on the craft of the authors they’ve read; they also give advice about how to become a good writer. Students write letters to their classmates thanking them for being supportive as they become better writers this year.
Both Making Meaning and Being a Writer provide opportunities for students to demonstrate knowledge gained from texts through various writing tasks. Students support their opinions and claims with textual evidence. Students also have opportunities to demonstrate in writing what they have learned from the texts through reader response activities.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
The materials provide multiple opportunities for students to use evidence from texts to support their opinions and claims. During the Opinion Writing unit of Being A Writer, students write an opinion essay on a topic they have strong opinions about. They read and discuss mentor texts by the publisher that contain researched facts to support a position, such as “It Is Our Money and We Need It.” Guidance states that teachers may wish to incorporate a “stronger research focus” to gather evidence to support their positions.
The materials provide opportunities for students to demonstrate in writing what they have learned through reading and listening to texts. In Making Meaning, Unit 3, Week 3, students apply the strategy of “Stop and Ask Questions” to their independent texts while writing in their Reading Journals. Students then answer one of those questions using their texts. If none of their questions are answered, students write something else they have learned from their texts thus far. Students are writing about what they have learned as they independently read their texts.
In Making Meaning, Unit 5, students read “When We First Met” by Nikki Grimes and complete a double-entry journal. On one side, they write “what I read” and the other side “what I inferred.” Students record text evidence to support their opinions and inferences about the text.
In Unit 7 of Making Meaning, students explore expository nonfiction and determine the author’s opinion in the text. In Week 4 of the unit, students discuss the two articles they read, supporting two sides of the argument for and against uniforms. In Student Response Journals, students write about the reasons the author gives that support the opinion that wearing school uniforms is good for students. The class then lists these as “Pros” on the class chart. Students also record the author’s reasons that support the opinion that uniforms are negative for students. These, too, are on the class chart. Independently, students then write a short essay using some of these ideas and their own opinions or experiences to support their stance on school uniforms, either for or against. In this way, students write using multiple pieces of textual evidence.
In Unit 8 of Making Meaning, students learn how to determine important ideas and to summarize texts. In Week 1 of the unit, students read Flight by Robert Burleigh and employ the strategy “Think, Pair, Write” to think about what is important in certain parts of the book. The teacher models by reading a passage from the text aloud, pausing to think aloud, and writing. Students then mimic this process. As the teacher reads aloud, students pause to think, share with their partners, then independently write about things they think are important to understand or remember in their Student Response Books. In this way, students write about their learning.
Throughout the year, students consistently experience the complete writing process to compose multiple texts across multiple genres. The materials provide opportunities to apply the conventions of academic language when speaking and writing. In addition, grammar, punctuation, and usage are taught systematically, both in and out of context of students’ writing.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Students learn the writing process in Unit 2 of Being a Writer. The Introduction within the Teacher Volume explains that in each unit, students “learn about elements of each genre as they brainstorm ideas, quick-write, and write multiple drafts. After this immersion and drafting phase, each student selects a draft to develop and revise for publication in the class library. The students spend the later weeks of each genre unit revising, proofreading, publishing, and sharing their pieces from the Author’s Chair.” Students experience all elements of the writing process as they produce a personal narrative, fictional narrative, expository nonfiction essay, opinion/argumentative essay, and poem.
In the Fiction unit of Being a Writer, students explore and engage in fiction writing over a six-week timeframe. In Weeks 1‒3, the teacher immerses students in the genre by listening to texts such as Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold and Owl Moon by Jane Yolen. During this immersion phase, students explore elements of the genre as they begin to draft their own stories and apply what they learned from the mentor texts. In Week 4 of this unit, students begin the process of analyzing and revising a chosen draft through guided peer conferring. In Weeks 5 and 6, students continue to revise and proofread their drafts with a focus on language conventions, such as punctuating speech and correcting run-on sentences. Students publish and present final drafts to the class through Author’s Chair sharing on Day 5 of week 6.
The materials provide opportunities for practice and application of the conventions of academic language when speaking and writing, including punctuation and grammar. At the end of each unit, students share their writing through the Author’s Chair. They use conventions of academic language. For example, on Day 5 of Week 6 of the Being A Writer Fiction unit, the teacher reviews speaking clearly and at an appropriate rate by asking students questions such as, “Why is it important to speak in a loud, clear voice when sharing with the class?”
The materials include discussion prompts throughout the year to foster speaking in complete sentences. For example, in the Functional Writing unit of Being A Writer, the teacher reminds the students to use the prompts previously taught, including, “I agree with ____ because_____, I disagree with...because…. In addition to what...said, I think….”
Grammar, punctuation, and usage are taught systematically, both in and out of the context of students’ writing. Being A Writer comes with a Skill Practice Teaching Guide and Student Skill Practice Book that provide 30 weeks of mini-lessons in grammar, usage, and mechanics skills. These lessons supplement the writing instruction within the Being a Writer units. During these lessons, there is a proofreading notes chart on the board for students to add specific notes to their student writing handbook. There are Skill Practice Notes within the Being a Writer Teacher’s Manuals to alert teachers to particular skills lessons. Most skill instruction is within the revision and proofreading portions of the writing process, though these lessons can also be used out of context based on students’ needs. For example, within the Personal Narrative genre in Being a Writer, students write a personal narrative. Within the revision and proofreading stages in Weeks 3 and 4 of this unit, students learn specific language skills, such as recognizing and correcting sentence fragments and run-on sentences (Lessons 4 and 5 of the Skills Practice Teaching Guide). They then apply these skills to their proofreading of drafts during Week 4. Similarly, students apply proofreading skills to each genre of writing during the editing phase.
The materials do not include practice to write in cursive or supports to assess handwriting development.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
There are no opportunities for students to write in cursive or supports to assess handwriting development.
The materials support students’ listening and speaking about texts studied in class to demonstrate comprehension. The tasks require students to use clear and concise information and claims based on textual evidence to demonstrate the knowledge they gained.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
The materials support students as they listen and speak about various texts and genre characteristics. Many of these listening and discussion opportunities occur through student partnerships designated at the beginning of each unit. In the Analyzing Text Structures unit of Making Meaning, students show understanding of Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco through discussion with a partner. Throughout the reading, students turn and talk about what has happened in the story. Then students discuss the setting, characters, and plot of the story. This allows students to analyze and adjust their comprehension as they read and then demonstrate understanding of the story elements after reading the text.
In Making Meaning, Unit 2, students read short sections of the book Nineteenth-Century Migration to America by John Bliss. Students use “Think, Pair, Share” to discuss “What did you learn in the part of the book you just heard?” at three stopping points. Then, students talk with their partners to synthesize; they discuss these three groups of people migrating to the United States and infer why they chose to come to the United States.
Most oral tasks require students to use clear and concise information and well-defended text-supported claims to demonstrate the knowledge gained through analysis and synthesis of texts. In Unit 4 of Making Meaning, students discuss the story elements of the text Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco. The materials include questions to facilitate the discussion, including “Who is telling the story? What in the story makes you think so?” and “In a few sentences, what is the plot of Chicken Sunday? What happens in the story?” There is a model summary in a “You Might Say” section. There is a Teacher Note in the sidebar to help support struggling students with this task.
In the Expository Nonfiction unit of Being a Writer, students explore nonfiction texts’ organization and presentation. After a class discussion on why curiosity is an important quality for a writer, students listen to the text Kenya: A Question and Answer Book by Sara Louise Kras. While reading the text, the teacher pauses to point out text features and clarify vocabulary. Afterward, students answer questions through a class discussion, including, “What is something you learned from this book about Kenya?” and “What is a question the author didn’t answer, but you would like to know more about?” Students use the strategy “Think, Pair, Share” to continue discussing the different ways the author shares information.
In the Making Inferences Unit of Making Meaning, students read the poem “My Man Blue” by Nikki Grimes. Students answer the questions, “How do you picture Blue in your mind? What in the poem makes you think that? What do you think these lines mean? Explain your thinking.” Students explain their inference from the poem and give text evidence to support their response. This demonstrates an overall comprehension of the poem as well as students’ ability to make inferences and defend their thinking.
In the Expository Nonfiction Unit of Being a Writer, students independently research a country and discuss their learning. Students answer the questions, “What have you learned about your topic that confirms what you thought you knew? What have you learned that is different from what you thought you knew?” In pairs, students synthesize what they read by comparing and contrasting what they thought they knew and what they learned.
The materials provide a range of opportunities for students to participate in discussions using protocols in both Making Meaning and Being A Writer. While Making Meaning provides limited opportunities for presentations and performances, Being A Writer provides regular opportunities for students to share their writing with the class.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
In Making Meaning, students discuss with partners or as a class throughout the units. In Unit 1 of Making Meaning, students learn the “Turn to Your Partner” procedure. The teacher and a class volunteer model what this procedure should look and sound like. The teacher also introduces the signal to end the discussion and face the teacher. Students practice their first “Turn to Your Partner” by discussing the question, “What is something you did in school last year that was especially fun or interesting? Turn to your partner.” There are several guiding “Teacher Notes” in this lesson to help support the teacher in building partnerships as well as using hand signals and building accountability.
During the final week of every writing unit of Being a Writer, students share their published writing with the class from the Author’s Chair. Procedures for Author’s Chair sharing are established in Unit 2, Week 2 of the program. During the Fiction unit, before students share, students review expectations for speaking clearly and listening attentively. Questions such as “Why is it important to speak in a loud, clear voice when you're sharing your book with the class?” facilitate a discussion on proper ways to present to an audience.
Students apply the “Turn to Your Partner” procedure to talk about their thinking. In Making Meaning, Unit 3 students use their independent reading time to determine and evaluate details to determine key ideas. They read a self-selected text and use sticky notes to mark sections that they want to use in their summary of the text. They discuss their thoughts with a partner before writing their summaries.
Making Meaning units include optional Technology Extensions, some of which include opportunities for student performances or presentations. For example, in Unit 3, an extension calls for students to conduct research about a topic of their choice and present this learning to the class in the form of a poster, digital presentation, or oral presentation.
The Making Meaning materials provide limited opportunities for students to give organized presentations. In Unit 4 of Making Meaning, students read the play “Gluskabe and Old Man Winter” from Pushing Up the Sky: Seven Native American Plays for Children by Joseph Bruchac. In Week 5 of the unit, students participate in a class reading of the play. Before the performance, the teacher facilitates a discussion on the importance of speaking clearly by asking questions such as, “Why is it important to speak in a loud, clear voice when you’re reading your lines aloud?” After the class reads the play, students make connections between the oral presentation of the play and the written version. This is the only instance of a class-wide presentation in the grade 4 Making Meaning materials.
In Being A Writer, students also often discuss with partners. During the Expository Unit, students discuss their learning and what they might choose to write about. At the end of the independent writing time, students reflect together and share what they or their partner wrote about.
In Being A Writer, students often discuss with partners. For example, in the Poetry Writing unit, students read “Lawnmower” by Valerie Worth and draft poems for 20-30 minutes. Once writing time is complete, the teacher calls the class back together to discuss who also wrote about an object like Valarie Worth. Students maintain their partners throughout the unit so they can build rapport. The teacher consistently provides discussion prompts to guide partner discussions. These include, “I agree with...because…. I disagree with...because….” “In addition to what...said, I think...” (Making Meaning, Questioning Unit). These prompts help students use the conventions of language.
During the Functional Writing unit of Being A Writer, students create original games. Students write directions detailing how to play their games. To present, partners read their directions to the class. The teacher reminds presenters to read their directions in a loud, clear voice. After sharing, presenters answer questions and comments from the class. At the conclusion of sharing time, those who presented reflect on the following question: “If you shared today, how did the audience members make you feel?”
The materials provide opportunities for students to engage in inquiry using various sources. Students organize and present this information within core lessons.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Although the terms primary resources and secondary resources are not utilized in the materials, the program provides opportunities for students to reference research materials.
Being a Writer contains a Writing Performance Task Preparation Guide that supports students as they analyze and gather information from multiple sources to produce a piece of writing within a specific genre. Students evaluate, interpret, and integrate information from primary and secondary sources. For example, during the Informative/Explanatory Writing performance task, students read the articles “Mars: Exploring a New Frontier” and “Challenges of Space Travel” and watch the videos “Mars in a Minute: Is Mars Red Hot?” and “Mars in a Minute: How do you get to Mars?” from the website “Mission to Mars.” Students use the information they gather to complete the writing performance task. Teachers support students using guiding questions as they summarize these sources and gather notes. These questions include, “What more did you learn about space exploration or surviving on Mars in the part of the article you just heard?” In this way, students use the sources to complete the writing task.
In the Expository Nonfiction Unit of Being a Writer, students learn about expository writing and conduct an extended research project. Students learn how to select a book that includes information related to their topic. They also learn how to use search queries on a search engine website. In addition, there are optional technology mini-lessons to support the selection of research sources and how to cite them. In this unit, students utilize at least three resources as they conduct their research.
In Weeks 1 and 2 of the Expository Nonfiction Unit, students learn to organize and present their information. After reading nonfiction texts about different countries, including A Visit to Italy by Rachael Bell, students discuss and make connections to the various ways authors organize information by discussing questions such as “How did the author organize information about Italy?” and “When reading today, what did you notice about how the information you looked at is organized?” By Week 4, students have conducted research on a country of interest and begin grouping their notes in order to organize their drafts. Partners respond to the question, “What other notes can we put together? What could we call this group of notes?” Materials then support teachers as they model organizing research notes and beginning a draft. At the end of the unit, students present their information through the Author’s Chair.
The materials consistently provide opportunities for students to build and apply knowledge and skills in reading, writing, speaking, listening, thinking, and language. Throughout the year, they contain high-quality, text-dependent questions and tasks that require students to analyze the integration of knowledge and ideas within individual texts as well as across multiple texts. While they have limited opportunities to integrate syntax, they include components of vocabulary and fluency.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
The text-dependent questions in the materials allow for the integration of knowledge and ideas taught in guided practice. Questions are text-dependent and in a logical order of difficulty. In Making Meaning, Unit 1, students listen to the teacher read Song and Dance Man by Karen Ackerman. Initially, the questions focus on overall comprehension of the text, such as, “What’s happening? What do you think will happen next?” As the lessons progress, questions reflect a deeper level of understanding of the text, such as, “What do you think about when you see these two pictures of Grandpa? What effect do his memories have on him? How do you think Grandpa feels when he starts to sing and dance? What in the story makes you think that?”
In Unit 3 of Making Meaning, students learn how the strategy of questioning helps them make sense of the texts they read. In Week 3, students discuss nonfiction texts through strategically sequenced questions. After students read Animal Senses by Pamela Hickman and Slinky, Scaly, Slithery Snakes by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, they discuss the question, “What have you learned about how animals see?” Students have a class discussion in response to, “What did you learn about the use of the sense of sight?” and “What else did you learn about how animals use the sense of sight?” The teacher conducts a think-aloud to model answering this question and models a written response using facts from both books. Students respond in writing. At the end of the lesson, students share their written responses.
While the materials include limited opportunities to integrate syntax, they regularly include components of vocabulary and fluency with opportunities for increased independence. Students engage in Independent Daily Reading for 20‒30 minutes per day. During independent reading and writing time, students practice skills taught during the guided lesson. For example, in Making Meaning, Unit 5, students listen to the teacher read Hurricane by David Wiesner. While reading independently, students practice making inferences on their own. Students write in their response journals about something they know happened in the text and whether that is directly stated or if they made an inference.
The questions and tasks help students build and apply knowledge and skills in reading, writing, speaking, listening, thinking, and language. For instance, during Unit 7 of Making Meaning, students read examples of expository nonfiction texts such as Flashy Fantastic Forest Frogs by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent. Students apply their learning from these examples to guide their writing as they craft nonfiction texts (Being a Writer, Expository Nonfiction Unit). In addition, there are ample opportunities to practice listening and speaking about nonfiction texts. For example, while students listen to the teacher read Explore the Desert by Kay Jackson, they turn and talk about what question they are asking themselves.
Students complete a narrative writing end-of-year performance task. The Narrative Writing Task consists of five days of guided lessons during which students apply literacy skills to a genre-specific performance task as a class, in partnerships, and independently. Students review source materials, including “The Oregon Trail Map,” “My Trip on the Wagon Train” journal, and an article titled “Moving West,” all publisher-created texts. Students listen to the task as the teacher explains it, discuss what they have learned about narrative writing, read the source materials for the task, then apply their writing skills within the genre to plan, write, and revise a narrative story about traveling West by wagon.
The materials include opportunities for vocabulary practice. In the Making Meaning Vocabulary Guide, Week 1, students learn the words bizarre, effective, and ineffective from the fiction picture book, A Bad Case of the Stripes by David Shannon. Students define the words using dictionaries. They receive prompt word cards to help further their understanding of the words. For instance, for the word bizarre, the prompt states, “The reporters call this a bizarre case because….” Students complete each prompt in pairs. Lastly, students provide antonyms for each word in the antonym chart.
The materials provide spiraled and distributed practice of integrated skills across the year through both reading and writing. The materials provide scaffolds for students to demonstrate the integration of spiraled literacy skills throughout the year.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Throughout the Making Meaning units, students use the Student Response Book to respond to the texts the class is reading. Students also respond to books they read independently in their Reading Journals and track their reading across the year.
The CCC standards correlation tab shows a breakdown of TEKS as they are taught throughout the year. This document shows how the standards are distributed throughout the year, giving students ample opportunity to practice. For example, “110.6.b.9.E.ii. Explaining how the author has used facts for an argument” is taught 118 times, including four times in Being a Writer, 72 times in Making Meaning, and six times in the Making Meaning Vocabulary Teaching Guide.
The materials support distributed practice over the course of the year. In Making Meaning, reading comprehension strategies are taught and developed throughout the year within nine units of instruction. In Unit 1, students learn about comprehension strategies and apply these strategies during their Individualized Daily Reading (IDR). In Unit 2, the class creates a Reading Comprehension Chart with the first strategy, “Using Text Features.” A Teacher Note in the sidebar guides teachers to reference the chart often and post it in a clearly visible place for students to access as they read. By Unit 9, students know the chart, which includes a variety of comprehension strategies. In this last unit, students reflect on their use of these strategies by answering class discussion questions such as, “What strategies did you find yourself using regularly?” and “How do these strategies help you make sense of what you are reading?”
Students continuously integrate self-monitoring skills and learn and apply reading “fix-up” strategies during IDR. Students learn to self-monitor in Unit 1 of Making Meaning as a way to pause while reading to ask themselves questions such as “Do I understand what I am reading?” The teacher models this strategy, and students practice it as they read independently. Then, in Unit 3, students learn “fix-up” strategies of reading and reading ahead that they will use when they are having difficulty understanding a text throughout the year. This spiraled scaffold supports students in developing their understanding of what they read throughout the year.
The program design includes scaffolds for students to demonstrate the integration of literacy skills that spiral over the school year. In Making Meaning, Unit 6, students make inferences while reading Amelia’s Road by Linda Jacobs Altman with a partner as the teacher reads aloud. Partners discuss, “What can you infer (figure out) about how Amelia is feeling from this passage?” Students then engage in IDR and make inferences about their books. In this instance, students listen to a text and practice with a partner before practicing the skill independently, which serves as a scaffold.
Being a Writer has distributed practice. In the Fiction Writing Unit, students recognize and correct run-on sentences and sentence fragments. Students have additional opportunities to practice revising these types of sentences when writing persuasive essays.
In Being a Writer, students listen to the teacher read a mentor text in the same genre that they will write. In the Functional Writing Unit, students listen to “Carrot and Raisin Salad” before drafting their own functional text. This gives students a concrete, published example and provides time to practice independently with teacher support.
Based on the Vocabulary Teaching Guide for Making Meaning, students receive five days of vocabulary instruction. Every week, Ongoing Review activities review vocabulary words and structures previously learned. The materials support students as they practice using the vocabulary through oral conversations with peers. For example, on Day 5 of Week 12, students review previously learned words (ceremony, flee, glower, misjudge, and resemble). Students review the pronunciation and meaning of the displayed words and use the words in context when playing the game “What Do You Think Will Happen?”
The materials provide explicit, systematic instruction in spelling skills and instruction in word analysis skills. However, they lack a systematic, research-based phonics program to support students, especially those in need of remediation.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Collaborative Literacy includes a research-based spelling program called Guided Spelling that contains 30 weeks of spelling instruction. The program is based on four areas of research on spelling, including Developmental Stages (Edmund Henderson, University of Virginia), Explicit Instruction (Barak Rosenshine), Word Frequency (Carroll, Davies, and Richman), and Basal Spelling. The spelling system addresses spelling TEKS for grade 4. For example, in Week 2, students learn patterns for adding a suffix to a base word and doubling the final consonant. In Week 10, students continue to learn patterns for adding suffixes to base words. In Week 22, students learn to not only spell but to use prefixes (un-, re-, and dis-) to change word meaning. In Week 29, students learn the suffixes -able and -ible.
Each week of the Guided Spelling program contains approximately 30 words, including new words, review words, and challenge words. To practice, students follow a sequence such as read the word, say the syllables, underline hard parts, cover the word, say and write the word by syllables, and check your answer. Students practice recognizing high-frequency words and frequently misspelled words. For example, in Week 15, students learn 15 new words (eight that use -tion) and 10 review words such as huge, drew, and force. The frequently misspelled word for the week is weather.
Making Meaning includes two volumes of a Vocabulary Teaching Guide. These 30 weeks of vocabulary instruction are based on the research of Baumann and Kame’enui, McKeown and Beck, and Stahl (1999). Students receive direct instruction in specific words and strategies to recognize words independently. For example, students learn to determine word meanings by using prefixes in- and mis-, suffixes -er and -ly, using Greek and Latin roots to determine word meanings, and recognizing synonyms, antonyms, and multiple-meaning words. In Making Meaning, Appendix A, Lesson 6, students learn how to identify prefixes, suffixes, and base words. As the teacher reads an excerpt from Let’s Race, the teacher circles the word awkwardly. The teacher demonstrates how to break the word into parts and use knowledge about the word base and suffix to determine the meaning of the word.
There is minimal guidance provided for remediation in vocabulary. Guidance appears at the bottom of each vocabulary assessment record in the Assessment Resource Booklet. Examples of guidance include: “If only a few of the students understand the word’s meaning, reteach the word using the vocabulary lesson in which it was taught as a model” or “If about half of the students understand a word’s meaning, provide further practice by having the students play…”. The materials reference an extension from a previous week’s lesson which addressed this skill. No other remediation lessons or small group lesson plans are included in the vocabulary, spelling, reading, or writing resources.
The Collaborative Literacy program materials do not include instruction in phonics, phonological awareness, or decoding of multisyllabic words through syllabication. They also do not include instruction or remediation in phonics, phonological awareness, or decoding of words. In order to teach phonics skills, the materials suggest the SIPPS program, which is available as a separate purchase.
There are various assessment resources in the materials, including diagnostic resources that assess reading and writing skills. However, these assessments do not assess foundational skills or provide teachers with guidance on how to respond to students’ needs.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
While the Guided Spelling materials do not include guidance for assessing or teaching skill gaps in phonics or decoding, the materials provide resources to teach spelling patterns. The spelling resources include a weekly formative assessment and tools for the teacher to interpret this data to inform or adjust instruction. For example, in Guided Spelling, Week 5, the focus is syllables with schwas. The lists indicate new words, review words, and challenge words for students who are able to master the grade level list. The students also generate words with final consonant clusters such as -mp and -nch. It is important to note that a diagnostic tool is not included for spelling.
The program also includes a Vocabulary Teaching Guide where teachers will find Individual Vocabulary Assessments. These eight assessments are multiple-choice and help teachers assess individual student word knowledge. Directions for administering the assessment and recording sheets are found in the Assessment Resource Book. There are suggestions for how to score the assessment, such as awarding a point per word or creating a rubric.
While reading diagnostic tools are not included in the Making Meaning materials, there are Individual Daily Reading (IDR) Conference Notes in the Assessment Resource Book. These notes are divided into four parts: “Initiate the Conference,” “Listen to the Student Read Aloud,” “Discuss the Text,” and “Discuss Text Level.” A “Suggestions For Supporting Readers” section directs teachers to a “Reading Development” section of the Assessment Resource Book. This informational section discusses the five stages of reading development (Awareness and Exploration, Emergent, and Fluent/Independent) and general ways to support each stage, such as “Work on phonics and phonological awareness” at the early reader stage. No phonics or phonological awareness instruction is provided in the materials at the time of this review.
In Making Meaning, Unit 1, students learn how to select books for independent reading. They also learn to use fix-up strategies when they struggle, such as asking, “What is happening in my book?” and “Do I understand what I am reading?” In the Making Meaning Assessment Guide, there are notes that explain the rubric for each unit assessment. However, the rating scales in the rubric are not broken down to indicate the specific skills to reteach.
The materials provide a “Reading Assessment Preparation Guide” on the teacher portal. These assessments are short passages with questions in a variety of formats. For example, after reading “Observations of Marine Iguanas,” students answer multiple-choice questions such as “Which sentence best states the author’s opinion of marine iguanas? and short-answer questions such as “According to the author, what do marine iguanas do to stay warm?” The materials contain a Class Assessment Record sheet where the teacher notes if “all or most students, about half of the students, or only a few students” are successfully answering the questions and using comprehension fix-up strategies. If half or fewer students adequately answer the questions, the teacher reviews a comprehension lesson such as “Self-Monitoring or Using Fix-Up Strategies” found in Appendix A of the Making Meaning Teacher Manual.
The Being A Writer Skills Practice Supplement includes a diagnostic language skills assessment. After administering this, the teacher may use the cumulative report forms to record individual results and class results. The teacher also utilizes the Center for the Collaborative Classroom (CCC) Class View Assessment App to track student progress and growth across all CCC systems. After analyzing these results, the teacher identifies skill practice mini-lessons to support student needs for additional learning. The skill practice mini-lessons include topics such as sentences, nouns and pronouns, capitalization, and punctuation. The diagnostic does not assess foundational literacy skills. Furthermore, the resources do not support teachers in identifying gaps in phonological awareness, phonics, decoding, or fluency. The program suggests the use of a partner system called SIPPS, but this is not within the CCC materials for review.
Students have ample opportunities to independently read the text at their level. While the materials reference the importance of teaching fluency and building foundational skills, they provide minimal guidance on how to teach these skills.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
The materials provide ample opportunities for students to read independently. Making Meaning lessons include Individualized Daily Reading (IDR), during which students independently read the text at their reading levels and apply the reading strategies learned.
The Assessment Resource Book provides IDR Conference Notes. Teachers use these notes to individually assess students’ comprehension of the text they read independently and discuss text levels. Teachers conduct one IDR conference per student in each unit. During the conference, teachers ask, ”Do you think this [book] is at the right level for you—not too difficult and not too easy? Why do you say that?” Suggestions for helping a student choose a more appropriate book appear in the “Suggestions for Supporting Readers” section of the Assessment Resource Book.
The IDR Conference Notes include a section labeled “Listen to the Student Read Aloud.” One of the criteria for scoring students is “The student reads fluently” by determining a score range from 1‒4. There is no guidance to explain what fluent reading looks like or how to monitor for accuracy and fluency as students are reading (Introduction to Making Meaning). If a student does not read fluently during this conference, the teacher teaches IDR Mini Lesson 4 “Reading with Expression” and IDR Mini Lesson 5, “Reading in Meaningful Phrases,” found in Teacher Volume II of Making Meaning, Appendix A. For example, in the mini-lesson for Reading in Meaningful Phrases, the teacher shows an excerpt from pages 4‒5 of the book Rainforests by James Harrison. The teacher reads aloud with and without phrasing. Then, students discuss the differences between the two readings. The group works together to chunk the excerpt into meaningful phrases and read it with phrasing. Students then compare what the reading sounds like with and without phrasing. Students continue to practice reading with phrasing using another excerpt and their IDR texts. The materials only provide one lesson to target each component of fluency, and the lessons utilize the same strategies and resources across grades 3‒5.
The Introduction to Making Meaning also stresses the importance of reading decodable readers, but there are no decodable readers in the materials. Thus, the materials do not embed opportunities to build foundational reading skills.
The materials provide various opportunities for whole-group extensions through additional reading and writing opportunities. However, the materials include limited opportunities for differentiation for students who are performing above grade level.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
The Making Meaning Implementation Guide explains incorporated extensions across content areas. It explains that many of the extensions for the Making Meaning text can be integrated into science or social studies. For example, the extension activities “Read and Watch Interviews with Rosa Parks” and “Research and Write about Earthquakes” might be taught during social studies and science, respectively. In addition, if schools have a designated time in their schedule for technology, the Implementation Guide suggests using the technology extensions during this time. For example, in Unit 1, Week 1, Day 4, the technology extension allows students to complete an author study and research project for the author of the day’s tradebook, Cynthia Rylant. Students complete research and present their findings to their peers. Students then revisit the text from the day, looking for evidence related to what they learned about the author.
In Making Meaning, Unit 2, the extension calls for students to discuss their interests and reading goals. Students answer questions such as “What are you excited to read about this year?” and “How do you want to grow as a reader this year?” to help the teacher tailor texts to class interests.
In Making Meaning, Unit 5, students delve into the genre of poetry. Students write poems about interesting people they know. A technology tip is included for students to further extend this activity and create a digital presentation of their poems. A “Using Presentation Tools” tutorial is available for teachers. In Week 3, students extend their learning about making inferences by reading additional poems from the poetry anthology, “My Man Blue.” Students visualize what they read and discuss their visualizations and evidence with a partner. The manual provides question stems for various poems in the anthology. For example, for the poem “Blue’s Hands,” questions include, “How do you picture blue’s hands? What does Damon mean in this part of the poem?”
In the Teacher Manual for Guided Spelling, the introduction explains strategies for differentiating spelling instruction. The manual states that the teacher may vary the number of works studied each week to differentiate. The teacher can also use the challenge words provided in the “words used this week” list.
In Being A Writer, at the beginning of each week, there is an extension section that outlines activities. For example, in the expository nonfiction section, students read more about a specific author, create a bibliography, or write letters home about nonfiction. In the poetry unit, there are extensions for the poems read aloud as a class. These include exploring more advanced poetic devices such as onomatopoeia and rhyme schemes.
In the Being a Writer Skill Practice Teaching Guide, Appendix B, there is an explanation of how to use these skill practice pages to meet the needs of various learner levels. It explains that each activity is scaffolded, with the first being a review skill, the second a grade-level appropriate skill, and the third a more rigorous task. The Teaching Guide recommends teachers use these in accordance with recent observational data to determine the needs of students.
Volume 2 of Being a Writer includes a technology extension for Opinion writing. In Week 2, Day 4, teachers support students’ online research through an optional mini-lesson, “Choosing Effective Search Terms.” Teachers customize this mini-lesson as a whole group or small group lesson to meet the needs of students. There are instructions for modeling online searches as well as follow-up mini-lessons that support this lesson extension.
The materials do include some extensions and differentiation opportunities as well as prompts for teachers to use if a student is not demonstrating mastery. However, these planning and learning opportunities are intended for all students who are not mastering the specific skill and are not designed specifically for students who perform below grade level.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
The Introduction to Making Meaning specifies that the classroom library should include a balance of genres and that 25% of texts should be one year to two years below grade level. While this acknowledges the need for texts that are below grade level, the teacher does not have specific guidance on how to ensure that students reading below grade level are accessing the appropriate texts.
In Making Meaning, Unit 1, students practice self-monitoring while independently reading. During Week 2, teachers circulate during independent reading and ask students to read aloud portions of their texts and answer questions about what they are reading. If students struggle to understand their text, teachers support comprehension by having students reread the class-created Thinking About My Reading chart and choosing questions that will help them self-monitor. This is general support for any students struggling with the specific grade-level strategy, not necessarily for students performing below grade level.
In Making Meaning, Unit 2, the teacher asks, “What did you learn in the part of the book you just heard?” The teacher waits 10 seconds and has students discuss with a partner before sharing as a class. According to the teacher note, this “builds the students’ independence.” While this cooperative learning structure helps some struggling students with comprehension, it does not address underlying reading difficulties.
In Making Meaning, Unit 6, the teacher asks students to restate or clarify what others have said by asking questions such as, “What did you hear...say?” and “What questions do you want to ask about what....said?” There are teacher notes stating that if a student is unable to read independently, they can read the text quietly with a partner. However, differentiation is generalized to the whole class and does not provide additional learning opportunities.
In Making Meaning, Unit 8, students practice determining important ideas and summarizing during individualized daily reading. In Week 3, students share an important idea from their reading with a partner. Teachers circulate during this partner share and support students who struggle to determine the main idea by asking probing questions such as, “What do you think is important for you to remember in the part of the book you read today?” This is a general prompt that is intended for any student struggling with the specific strategy.
The Being A Writer resources include limited differentiation opportunities for students performing below grade level when it comes to skills practice and spelling. The Being A Writer Skills Practice resource contains reteach opportunities for students who did not master the skill. Each week in Guided Spelling, there are student lists based on students’ current skill levels. Students who are below their expected level study from the starred word list. The Being a Writer Teacher’s Manual provides guidance for using the Class Assessment Notes within the lessons. These notes occur once per week and guide teachers to observe students as they work independently or in pairs. For example, in the Being A Writer fiction unit, Week 2, students continue drafting their fiction pieces. Teachers circulate and observe students writing independently. A Class Assessment Note provides teachers with reflection questions. If students struggle to write, teachers support these students by asking questions such as, “Who is an interesting person you know who you can make up a story about?”, “What makes this person happy? Unhappy?”, “Let’s say this person feels unhappy because of what you just described. What unusual thing could happen to help him/her feel better?” Students record their responses and continue to write. Teachers record this observation in the Class Assessment Record. These questions are for all students, not specifically for students performing below grade level.
There are other general supports in Being A Writer. For example, during the “Functional Writing Unit,” the teacher directs struggling students to reference their student writing handbook. In the “Expository Nonfiction Unit,” the teacher provides prompts to students who struggle to use an atlas, such as “If your students have not yet worked with an atlas, show one, explain that it is a book of maps, and discuss how it is organized.” These prompts are brief and intended for use with all students, not specifically for students who do not show mastery of grade-level concepts.
The materials provide supports for English Learners (ELs) to meet grade-level learning expectations. These supports include accommodations for linguistics, scaffolds, strategic use of students’ first language, and opportunities for connected discourse. While the teacher must differentiate the accommodations to various levels of English language proficiency, there are numerous provided strategies and ideas.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
The materials contain multiple accommodations for English Learners (ELs). Making Meaning, Volume 1 of the Teacher’s Edition includes a Special Considerations section that describes supports and scaffolds for English Learners. These English Language Development Strategies include creating a respectful, safe learning community, cooperative learning, authentic communication, vocabulary development, language-rich environment, scaffolded instruction, integrating movement and art to demonstrate understanding, and critical thinking.
There are suggestions for simplifying questions. These include “providing context clues as part of the question” and asking “who/what/where/when questions rather than how/why questions.” This section also describes the developmental stages of language acquisition under an immersion framework. These stages are defined but not specifically addressed in the lessons.
Making Meaning contains suggestions for accommodating ELs throughout lessons. For example, in Unit 4, the teacher discusses baseball terms before reading aloud The Bat Boy & His Violin by Gavin Curtis and Teammates by Peter Golenbock. Also in Unit 4, there is a note explaining how to simplify the chapter questions in Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco. For example, rather than asking, “How can we describe the plot in a few sentences?” the teacher can ask, “What happens in the story?” In Unit 6, a Teacher Note explains that ELs might benefit from a review of the illustrations in the excerpt on pages 19‒23. The teacher reads the passage aloud while taking time to stop for discussion with the EL students. In the same unit, the teacher provides EL students with additional vocabulary words such as tidy, settle down, and harvest to help them better understand the book Amelia’s Road by Linda Jacobs Altman.
The “Supports for ELLs” section of the Teacher Volume for Making Meaning gives ideas for tailoring the Individualized Daily Reading portion of the lessons, such as providing audiobooks, using partner reading, responding to literature in various ways such as drawing, and providing one-on-one support from support staff or parents.
Being A Writer also provides suggestions for scaffolding lessons. For example, in the Personal Narrative Writing Unit, as students start their pre-writing, the teacher gives non-native English-speaking students the option to draw their ideas or talk with a partner about an experience before writing. If needed, students can also request specific phrases or terms for support and then use them to copy into a personal word list to use while writing. Throughout the lessons, there are callouts for how to accommodate ELs, such as simplifying the question from “What kind of building might these gargoyles be peering into?” to “The gargoyles are looking into a building. What kind of building are they looking into?” (Being a Writer, Fiction Unit).
The materials provide explicit vocabulary instruction as a part of the connected unit discourse. A safe and respectful learning community is intentionally built through cooperative structures, peer partnerships, opportunities for shared work, reflection, and oral expression. In Making Meaning, Volume 1 of the Teacher’s Guide, students engage in explicit instruction about the vocabulary they encounter in the read-aloud texts. For example, in Unit 1, Week 1, the materials define words such as Pledge of Allegiance and lab (short for laboratory) as vocabulary ELs may struggle with. A Teacher Note suggests that these words should be defined but not discussed to “maintain the flow of the story.”
Also, the materials include a vocabulary teaching resource. This can be integrated into the Making Meaning units or used separately. Each week the teacher reviews vocabulary terms connected with the read-aloud text and then selects word-learning strategies and resources to use with the reading lesson. For example, in Week 23, some of the word learning strategies are recognizing antonyms or using the prefix in- to determine word meaning. The lessons review previously taught terms like initial, note, precise, before, and process, as well as teaching new terms: conditions, humane, inhumane, ensure, equitable, and inequitable. These lessons also incorporate social development focus, such as helping students learn to work together responsibly in groups, which support ELs in their oral language development.
Making Meaning, Volume 1 of the Teacher’s Guide includes considerations for pairing ELs. Strategic pairing supports the development of vocabulary and oral language skills. For example, a recommendation states that students work with the same partner for an entire unit, though at times, random pairings may be advantageous. The materials recommend pairing a beginning English speaker with a fluent English or multilingual speaker or placing students in trios so they may have opportunities to hear fluent English spoken with the support of a similar native language speaker.
In the Making Meaning Vocabulary Teaching Guide, there is support for native Spanish speakers. There are parent letters to be sent home in Spanish, and there are notes for vocabulary words that have a Spanish cognate so that students can make the connection in the meeting.
The materials include formative and summative assessments that are aligned to the content, including guidance on scoring. However, the materials do not indicate the TEKS alignment and provide limited guidance for interpreting and responding to student performance.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
The materials provide a data portal called ClassViewPro. The portal allows the teacher or administrator to review detailed reports on classes, groups, or individual students.
The portal includes a “Reading Assessment Preparation Guide.” It contains assessments, which consist of short passages with questions in a variety of formats. For example, after reading “Observations of Marine Iguanas,” students answer multiple-choice questions such as “Which sentence best states the author’s opinion of marine iguanas?” and short answer questions such as, “According to the author, what do marine iguanas do to stay warm?” The materials contain a Class Assessment Record sheet where the teacher notes if “all or most students, about half of the students, or only a few students” are successfully answering the questions and using comprehension “fix-up” strategies. If half or fewer students adequately answer the questions, the teacher should review a lesson such as “Self-Monitoring or Using Fix-Up Strategies” found in Appendix A of the Making Meaning Teacher Manual.
The Making Meaning Assessment Resource Book supports teachers in making informed, instructional decisions about the comprehension and social skills taught throughout the units of instruction. The assessments allow teachers to track and evaluate vocabulary knowledge. Formative assessments include Class Observation Assessments, Individualized Daily Reading (IDR) Conferences, and a Student Reading Goals and Interests Survey. The Class Observations help the teacher assess the needs of the entire class. For example, a question from Unit 2, Week 3, Day 2 is, “Are the students able to use all the text features?” Summative assessments in the Resource Book include a Social Skills Assessment that is meant to be conducted three times per year as well as Individual Comprehension Assessments that help assess strategy use and comprehension. Assessment aligns with the strategy taught during the unit and is administered once per unit.
Lessons within the Making Meaning core units include an icon that alerts teachers when an assessment is suggested. For example, in Unit 8 of Making Meaning, students learn the comprehension strategy of Determining Important Ideas and Summarizing. The Individual Comprehension Assessment that correlates with this lesson includes assessing the response activity students completed: “Summary of...[title of student independent reading book].” There is a scoring sheet, as are scored examples and teacher commentary.
While there are suggestions on how to support struggling students, they are limited. During the formative Class Observation, Unit 5, Week 2, Day 3, the Class Assessment Record provides suggestions for teachers such as, “If all or most students are able to make inferences, proceed with the lesson and then continue on to Independent Strategy Practice on Day 4.” Suggestions for how to proceed if half of the students can make inferences include continuing with the lesson, but focusing on struggling students during IDR reading and asking them follow-up questions about inferencing. If only a few students are able to make inferences at this point in Unit 5, the Assessment Record suggests that teachers reteach Days 1‒3 using an alternative poem. There is a list of alternative texts in the online CCC Learning Hub. While there are suggestions for reteach, they frequently suggest that teachers repeat or reinforce the skill in the same way it has already been taught without providing a different approach.
The materials also provide formative assessment opportunities through daily conferences. Both Making Meaning and Being a Writer have daily independent practice time. During IDR in Making Meaning, Unit 5, students read silently while the teacher confers and makes notes on whether the student is reading fluently and comprehending the text. During writing in Being a Writer, Fiction Unit, students write independently while the teacher confers and takes notes on the Class Assessment Record sheet. The teacher notes look-fors such as “Are they focusing on developing characters? Do they have ideas for actions, speech, and thoughts they could write to reveal character?”
In Being A Writer, students complete a summative assessment at the end of each unit. The materials provide guidance on scoring by including examples of scored passages. There is a section called “Commentary” for each writing piece. This section contains a detailed explanation of the scored example to guide teachers through the rationale behind scoring. There is a section called “Student Writing Samples.” Teachers find a collection of student writing tied to each unit to show as exemplars to students. While these assessment materials are aligned to the unit, there is no TEKS correlation.
They include guidance on engaging students in multiple grouping structures throughout the year. The teacher edition provides various types of annotations and supports to engage students, including differentiated instruction to meet the needs of a range of learners.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
At the beginning of each unit and week, an overview outlines the instructional materials needed, the objectives for students, any additional resources like online resources, technology extensions, assessments to administer during the week, and any other resources the teacher may need to print or create before teaching the lesson.
The scope and sequence documents and the teacher’s manuals both provide information about the ancillary resource lessons teachers can use. For example, in Being a Writer, Unit 2, the teacher uses Lesson 1: Identify complete sentences and Lesson 2: Identify incomplete sentences from the Skills Practice Guide.
Students work in pairs and small groups to listen and discuss texts and apply comprehension strategies. Students are randomly paired at the beginning of each unit, and these pairs stay together throughout the entire unit. The Making Meaning Teacher’s Manual explains how to randomly pair students, such as by distributing pairs of playing cards or matching magazine pictures that have been cut in half. In Making Meaning, Unit 3, the teacher asks questions such as, “What can you do to be a responsible partner? Why is that important?” to engage students in thinking about how to best work with their partner. Students remain with the same partner throughout the unit to build rapport and develop comprehension.
In the “Introduction” to Making Meaning and Being a Writer, there is a list of the helpful lesson features or annotations included in the lessons. These annotations include “Vocabulary Notes,” “Topic Notes,” “Teacher Notes,” “ELL Notes,” “Facilitation Tips,” “Cooperative Structure Icons,” “Suggested Vocabulary,” “ELL Vocabulary,” “Students Might Say,” “You Might Say,” “Chart Diagrams,” “Technology Tips,” “2D Barcodes,” “IDR Conference Notes,” and “End-of-Unit Considerations.” For example, there is a “Students Might Say” section to help support students who struggle with responding to a question. Teacher Notes in the sidebar provide teachers with purposes for different activities, materials that are to be collected and/or saved, ways of managing a lesson, or references to ancillary materials that may be utilized with students. For example, in Unit 4, Week 1 of Making Meaning, a Teacher Note alerts teachers that students will be practicing two “fix-up” self-monitoring strategies during Individualized Daily Reading (IDR). The teacher can use the mini-lesson “Self-monitoring and Using Fix-up Strategies,” which is found in Appendix A of the Making Meaning Teacher’s Manual.
Both Making Meaning and Being a Writer include helpful technology features that support student learning and provide assistance to teachers. Two such features in the sidebar of the materials are Technology Tips and 2D Barcodes (QR codes). The Technology Tips assist teachers as they integrate technology into a lesson. The 2D codes are scanned and provide teachers with instant access to instructional media or professional development that is helpful for a particular portion of a lesson. For example, during the Personal Narrative Unit of Being a Writer, students learn how to “Share One Sentence and Reflect” after they have completed their writing for the day. A 2D code in the sidebar takes the viewer to a two-minute video example of the strategy.
There are Cooperative Structures, such as Turn to Your Partner, Think-Pair-Share, Think-Pair-Write, Heads Together, and Group Brainstorming throughout both Making Meaning and Being a Writer. These structures allow students to talk about their thinking and hear from others. They promote accountability and participation and are called out within the materials using a double speech bubble icon.
Lastly, the student response books in Making Meaning provide students with a guide to reflect on what they have read and to show what they are learning. They also provide the teacher with information on how students are progressing through the material and skills.
The materials provide various resources to support teachers and administrators with the implementation of the curriculum. These supports include modules and slide decks that build a conceptual understanding of materials as well as supports for individual lessons. The materials include a school years’ worth of literacy instruction, including realistic pacing. There is also a scope and sequence that includes the essential knowledge and skills taught in the program.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
The materials include a scope and sequence that outlines the units of study. The scope and sequence for both Making Meaning and Being a Writer detail the unit title, length of the unit, core titles, vertical alignment of objectives across grade levels, and the purpose of the unit. The “Purpose” section summarizes the unit understandings and any spiraling review of comprehension or self-monitoring strategies. Furthermore, it explains the lesson foci for whole group, small group, independent, and social skills development lessons. There is a whole-class “Vocabulary” section that identifies the words to be taught during the unit. In Being A Writer, the Scope and Sequence also includes what students will do and learn as part of “Writing Craft and Genre,” “Skills and Conventions,” and “Independent Practice.”
While the scope and sequence does not include specific TEKS for each unit, the Learning Portal includes a correlations tab. This resource provides the standards addressed in each lesson of Making Meaning and Being a Writer.
The materials include additional supports for teachers. They include a digital teacher set that contains the teacher’s manuals, the Assessment Resource Book, Skill Practice Teaching Guide, and Writing Performance Task Preparation Guide. The materials also include access to the “Learning Portal,” where teachers can access interactive activities, tutorials, professional development videos, and student materials. Furthermore, the materials include 4.5 hours of online course modules to support teachers in understanding and planning for program structures. For instance, the course modules for Making Meaning include “Introduction,” “Understanding Program Structure,” “Vocabulary Acquisition and Use,” “Lesson Facilitation,” “Individualized Daily Reading,” “Assessment,” and “Reading Assessment Preparation Guide.”
Each of the teacher materials contains an introduction section that describes how the materials are used in conjunction with the other resources, a suggested timeline across the year, and any student resources that support instruction. For example, the “Introduction” to the Vocabulary Teaching Guide, Volume I, explains the importance of vocabulary instruction, how to use the vocabulary lessons, provides a suggested lesson length, and gives an overview of the instructional design: “The lessons combine direct instruction in word meaning with activities that require the students to think deeply about the words and use them as they talk with their partners and the class.”
There are also supports for teachers in the margins of the teacher editions. These supports are marked with specific symbols and include teacher notes, cooperative structure icons, ELL support, suggested vocabulary, 2D barcodes to gain access to instant professional development and instructional media, and assessment notes. Administrators can also use these notes to support teachers with implementation.
The materials include materials specific to administrators to support teachers in implementation. The Making Meaning materials include a “Facilitator’s Guide for Professional Learning Support.” The Facilitator’s Guide has detailed explanations to support on-site professional development. The supports include publisher-created slideshow presentations with the presenter’s notes attached to each slide. There are session agendas, participant activities, facilitator/participant materials, and estimated timestamps within the facilitator guide. The guide includes material for seven professional development sessions and various school site reflection tools.
The materials include a school year’s worth of instruction and provide guidance for developing a scope and sequence. The Implementation Guide includes a “Sample Year Long Calendar” that outlines 30 weeks of instruction for Reading, Writing, Skills and Conventions, Vocabulary, and Spelling. Each week includes five days of lessons. According to the Implementation Guide, each instructional block is a recommended 120 minutes. The resource includes strategies to extend the learning if needed, such as “Teach Writing about Reading activities, Extensions, and/ or Technology Extensions.”
The materials use an appropriate amount of white space and design that does not divert students’ attention; the pictures and graphics are supportive of student learning and engagement without distraction.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials include consistent use of font and color, including pictures and graphics, which support student learning and engagement, for Making Meaning and Being a Writer. Color is used sparingly, as all text is in green lettering with a white background. The student-facing materials provide adequate white space. For example, the Guided Spelling Student Book provides simple practice spaces that only contain the words in white and green and do not distract from the student-learning objectives.
The Student Writing Handbook for Being a Writer includes excerpts from mentor texts, articles, essays, and poetry examples. Each text has its page with ample white space and large margins. The design of the Student Writing Handbook supports student learning with pages that are labeled and numbered. For example, in the poetry unit, there is an excerpt of the text cow by Valerie Worth. At the bottom of the page with the poem, there is an illustration that may support English Language Learners with the vocabulary in the poem, such as “Her hipbones Jut Like sharp Peaks of stone.”
The Student Response Book for Making Meaning includes graphic organizers and articles with pictures that are supportive of student learning. The majority of the Student Response Book includes ample white space that supports students as they engage in activities and journal their reading. Images within articles are appropriate for use in grade 4, and although monotone, there is enough color contrast to distinguish the image from the background and do not distract from the reading. This includes excerpts from read-aloud texts, writing activities, reading logs, and a reading journal. This resource is written in grade-appropriate font and size and contains appropriate white space for students to write in and take notes. The design of the response book supports student autonomy with pages that are labeled and organized in a logical progression. For example, there are two pieces of text from A Picture Book of Amelia Earhart on two separate pages of the resource book with a text box that states “Excerpt” for the first text and “Summary” for the second. A separate page that asks students to Think, Pair, Write about the text is strategically placed to support students’ understanding and promote independence.
In Unit 2, while reading Nineteenth-Century Migration to America by John Bliss, the student materials contain an excerpt from the text, including a photograph of immigrants in steerage and a map of their travels. The features support the text and are not distracting.
While working in Unit 4, there is the story Gluskabe and Old Man Winter by Joseph Bruchac and then a graphic organizer on the story elements.
In the Persuasive Writing Unit, the student excerpt for School Uniforms The Way to Go shows photographs of students in school uniforms which may support their understanding of the arguments made in support of school uniforms.
The materials include technology components that are grade-level appropriate and support learning. The supports enhance learning, and there is appropriate teacher guidance.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
In the teacher volume of Making Meaning and Being a Writer, there are technology resources in the introduction section of Teacher’s Volume I. It states, “The Making Meaning Digital Teacher’s set includes electronic versions of the Teacher’s Manual, Assessment Resource Book, Vocabulary Teaching Guide, and Reading Assessment Preparation Guide (grades 3‒6) for use on a tablet device or computer.” This section lists technology tutorials that may support teachers’ implementation of the program’s technology features and how to use widely available technology referenced in the lessons, such as presentation tools. Tutorials include topics like “Using Web-based Maps and Related Tools,” “Using Blogs in the Classroom,” and “Creating Digital Stories.”
There are technology extensions for some lessons. In both Making Meaning and Being a Writer, Technology Extensions are optional activities that extend the learning for a particular lesson or topic and support students in a variety of topics. Examples include Navigating Safely Online, Choosing Effective Search Terms, and Understanding Search Results. Technology tips, extensions, and lessons are called out within the Teacher Manual with a specific “clicking finger” icon. They include listening to and discussing an online interview with an author or publishing their writing in an online format such as a class blog, visiting a website to investigate a topic, or listening to an audio version of a book heard in a lesson. For example, in Unit 6, Week 1 of Making Meaning, the Technology Extension at the end of day 3 has students create their virtual treasure boxes as an extension to the text “Amelia’s Road.” Students make recordings of their treasured items and upload their videos to the class blog. There are several Technology Tips in the sidebar to guide teachers on how to create audio and video recordings, how to use a class blog, as well as on other technology alternatives to recordings.
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