5 th Grade English Language Arts

Transcription

1 Key Ideas and Details % % RL.5.1 needs clarification. What does "quote" mean in fifth grade? Is it an explicit quote, a restatement, or a reference to the text. What is the difference in this and the fourth grade standard? RL This contains two different skills. Can summarization stand alone? Determining a theme is too difficult for fifth graders. If given a theme they can support that with evidence from the text but have trouble with coming up with theme on their own. Developmentally these are inappropriately written. 5th graders have only been writing for 6 years of their academic life. We think that RL 5.2 should be split up. For example, finding theme and summarizing should be two different standards. Fifth grade students SHOULD be able to do apply these standards, whether they are in literacy, or some other class such as science. Craft and Structure % % RL.5.5 needs to be clarified. What exactly does this look like? Need examples. RL give an example. Do we go into 1st, 2nd, 3rd person point of view, add omniscient, etc? Point of view standard needs to be clarified. Standard RL.5.4 is much too generic in my opinion. It begins with RL.K.4 (ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text) and builds from there, which is a great idea. The problem is that it is so broad, I do not know where my students' focus should be. Are we focusing on metaphors and similes? Are we focusing on other figurative language as well? Do students need to be able to determine the meaning of words and phrases in a text using appropriate knowledge and technology (such as dictionaries, thesauruses, computers, etc), or do they have to be able to do this on their own? These are appropriately written for high school students, not a developing 10 year old.

2 I believe that 5.5 and 5.6 are not developmentally appropriate for 5th graders. Normally, fifth grade students struggle to explain something to the depth that these standards are written. There are always a few, but the cognitive development just hasn't happened for many students. We are fortunate that by the end of the year that we might have half, but some classes may still only have a few who have reached that stage of development. I believe more examples of figurative language can be added. By this age, they are picking it up and finding it in text they read. ex: personification, alliteration, idioms Integration of Knowledge and Ideas % % RL.5.7 Is this necessary? Can you give an example? This works better with informational text. RL.5.9 Why does this have to be in the same genre? Some of the standards are hard to understand and just what exactly the student must be able to do. For example 5.7 I feel that this needs some more explanation on just what exactly the students must do. Specific examples of visual and multimedia elements would be helpful in the teaching component. Again, the cognitive development of fifth graders just isn't quite ready for this level of complexity. Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity % % I think that this standard is appropriate as written, however, I do not necessarily believe that the text complexity band is appropriate. We push students extremely far once they reach 3rd & 4th grade, and they are required to read so much more each year just to stay "on grade level." This works for our students who have involved parents and who visit the library on their own, or over the summer and read for fun, or with their families. It does not work for students whose parents are working 2 or 3 jobs and have no time to even see their children, let alone sit down and read with them. It is an ideal goal number, but I do not see how it can be practical to set a goal based on what we "want"

3 a child's life to look like, rather than to look around and see that there are obviously other factors that are affecting a large population of our students. Community programs and teachers staying late to tutor or assist students can only go so far. I truly believe that if we make some of the educational standards and expectations more reachable for all students, they will begin to excel in other areas. Lower the reading level for a standardized test by just one grade level, but keep the questions the same, and more students will be successful with the standards that you expect them to be. Not being able to read "on level" is the stumbling block that many, many students are facing, and it means they cannot do the other work, and meet the other standards. I had several students last year who would have been considered proficient or advanced on state testing materials, had they been able to access the questions on a lower reading level. Instead, the tests pushed that level even higher than standard 5th grade, and they scored in the basic and below basic ranges, because they simply could not read (or understand the vocabulary read aloud) of the questions themselves. We wish there were a standard way to assess this. When testing, I have felt the text complexity was much harder than the range of reading levels for 5th grade. Many of the students I teach in 5th grade are not on that level. ALL 5th graders are not able to read independently on this level. Some students must be scaffolded through this text level. Independent and proficient reading is KEY to everything else students must do in not only literacy, but in every other class they have! Key Ideas and Details % % RI Give example and clarify exactly what is meant hear. RI Can this be broken into a and b parts? RI Can you give an example? Please clarify RI 3 in all grade levels and give examples for what this looks like in the classroom. See answer to question #4. If reading levels were more accessible, more students would be able to accomplish these standards. Can a 10 year old Explain the relationships or interactions of two or more events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on information in the text? RI5.2 should be split up; determining main idea and summarizing the text should be two separate standards.

4 RI.5.2: I have commented on this same standard in grades 3 and 4 as well. Asking students to explain HOW key details support the main idea seems like busy work. If a 3rd, 4th, and 5th grader can determine the main idea of a text in their Lexile band and find 2-3 key details to support the main idea they are doing a great job and moving toward deeper understanding of the text. Explaining HOW the key details support the main idea is a pretty subtle analysis of text for elementary students. Students end up writing/saying generic things like "the author supports the main idea by giving examples", or "the key details support the main idea because they are descriptions." I don't think this is helping students with their comprehension. The standard would be better if it said, Determine two or more main ideas in a text and identify the key details that support the main ideas. RI.5.3: This is very difficult standard for 5th graders and teachers are having a hard time understanding the standard; so I am afraid it is not being addressed. If you look for lessons about this standard on other schools/districts websites you don't see anything about this standard. I don't think the idea of the standard is wrong it just needs to be rewritten with possibly some examples or further explanation. We have written some lesson for this standard (see Springdale curriculum on district website) but they haven't been taught yet- we will see how this goes once students start interacting with this standard. We need to look at RI is confusing as it is written. It needs to be clarified. I think these standards are appropriate for fifth grade. However, I have found over the last few years that more and more students are seemingly incapable of such tasks. Our literacy teachers work on these skills ALL YEAR, yet most students fail at applying these skills in their content classes. We (the content teachers) ensure we are using the same terminology, and discuss the skills with the students and their literacy teacher, yet most of them still fail to apply these skills elsewhere. Craft and Structure % % RI5.6 not developmentally appropriate 5th graders struggle with text structure of just a single text. Asking students to compare and contrast two or more texts is very difficult for an average 5th grader. Science and Social Studies texts are written at the 8th and 9th grade reading level. Most students lack the understanding of how to use inline pronunciation guides or the capacity to discern the correct meaning for a multiple-meaning word. RI.5.4 is too vague and needs to be more specific

5 Integration of Knowledge and Ideas % % RI Can you give an example? RI How is this different from main idea and supporting details? RI5.9 Although I consider these appropriate standards, many students have extreme difficulty with these standards. Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity % % See answer to question #4. Reading complexity levels are too high to accommodate most students. We wish there were a standard way to assess this. I do not like the other subject being integrated into reading. Reading should be on its own as should the other subjects. Again, expecting ALL students to read on grade level is not going to happen. This is a response. Half the student master this by the end of 5th grade, while half do not. This is regardless of which literacy and content teachers the students have. Phonics and Word Recognition % %

6 By 5th grade, I need my students to be able to use phonics successfully. Class time needs to be spent on concepts such as root and affixes, and phonics needs to be addressed for students who are behind grade level only, such as during small group or RTI time. I do not feel that this standard is written in such a way to inform parents (or teachers) that students need to be proficient at basic phonics before they reach 5th grade. Phonics is the teaching of reading and word recognition through phonemic awareness-the sounds of letters and their relationship with each other. Roots and affixes should not actually be under the phonics header anyways, as they are not phonics, but rather morphemes. These standards are appropriate, however, I rarely see these skills demonstrated. Fluency % % What is a range of appropriate rate for fifth grade? See previous notes on "grade level text" not being an appropriate measure. These are appropriate, yet more than half the students do not master fluency skills. Text Types and Purposes % % 5.1: To me, "information" is ambiguous. I might say "supporting evidence from the text." 5.2c: "Categories of information" is confusing to me. Needs to be more specific. It will take a few years of building at the lower levels to successfully be able to write this way. appropriate - but most students cannot do this - by the way - this survey is too long Production and Distribution of Writing %

7 5 8.93% I do not disagree with how the above standards are written. However, if our students are required to use the Internet as stated in w.5.6, our state needs to ensure the use of that equipment in each school. Typing two pages for a fifth grader is not developmentally appropriate. I think for standard W.5.6, the idea of "a minimum of two pages in a single sitting" is very vague. What is "one page"? Single or double spaced, 12 point font? W.5.6 how long is a single sitting? Students in fifth grade do not have appropriate typing skills to produce two pages. with guidance - yes Research to Build and Present Knowledge % % W.5.9, W.5.9:a,b - What does this mean? Please clarify and provide examples. 5.9, a and b: How should this be measured? All of 5.9 seems ambiguous and not specific enough. Developmentally not appropriate! Students really struggle with these research standards. This is a great standard - easy for content teachers to teach as well! Range of Writing %

8 2 3.57% Comprehension and Collaboration % % SL Please clarify and give an example. We need more of this! Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas % % SL 5.5 I believe that these are skills that are very important for today. However, they are not tested skills. As a result, we don't always feel we have time to do the projects that would include these skills. SL 5.6 We need to look at this one a little closer. 9/11/2015 6:17 PM View respondent's answers Categorize as... œ Students do not have the multimedia skills to present knowledge and ideas. Someone will have to teacher them how to do this before we are successfully able to do so. 9/11/2015 3:34 PM View respondent's answers Categorize as... œ We need more technology available to make this work! Conventions of Standard English % %

9 L.5.1:b - Is this necessary? L.5.1:e - Is this necessary? L.5.2:e - What are grade appropriate words? Need to possess a better grammar foundation such as parts of speech and use of punctuation. L.5.2.E Suggestion: Many teachers have requested an alignment of Kathy Ganske's spelling stages and the features within each stage to grade level expectations. We wish we could go more in-depth with parts of speech. We are also wanting a strong, standard curriculum to support these particular standards. L 5.1.b Is this necessary? Fifth graders are not developmentally ready for all of the conventions. Knowledge of Language % % L.5.3:b - This is not necessary as a language standard. Dialects and Registers, not developmentally appropriate. L 5.3.B I'm not sure we need to compare as much as we need to expose students to the different dialects. Vocabulary Acquisition and Use % % L.5.5:b - Please define the difference between adages and proverbs. Adages and proverbs are not appropriate for fifth graders.

10 Greek and Latin roots. Many ten year olds are struggling with pre-fixes and affixes. L 5.5.B Do we need to include adages and proverbs? As a content teacher, I see way too much struggle with students attempting to find meanings when the meaning is through context clues OR a little bit found in each sentence that they have to pull together. Does anyone really know what an "adage" is?