The Standards and Indicators for School Improvement charge districts with monitoring and revising the curriculum to ensure local, state and national standards are addressed. In an effort to meet this challenge, the Language Arts’ Competency Assurance was reviewed during the 2002-2003 school year. Feedback from Language Arts Representatives, Literacy Resource Specialists, Cluster Leaders, Department Chairs, and other district personnel were incorporated into this revised document.

Competency Assurance Standards integrate Academic Expectations, Transformations, Core Content for Assessment, Program of Studies, National Standards, and Put Reading First Goals. The Competency Assurance document not only meets the criteria of the Standards and Indicators for School Improvement, but also can be used as an instructional tool. In addition to National and State Standards documents, the following resources were consulted to guide the development of the document:

"New Standards in Reading and Writing" from Reading and Writing Grade by Grade, a New Standards document published by the National Center on Education and the Economy and the University of Pittsburgh

Put Reading First by Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Association (CIERA) and the National Institute for Literacy

Big Ideas in Beginning Reading by the Institute for Development of Educational Achievement

Building Fluency: Lessons and Strategies for Reading Success by Wiley Blivens

Literacy First Phonics Continuum by Bill Blokker of the Professional Development Institute

Systems for Change in Literacy Education by Lyons and Pinnell

Road Map to School Writing Success by Miller and Nickell

Guiding Readers and Writers 3-6 by Fountas and Pinnell

The Youngest Writer by Marcia Freeman

Kentucky Marker Papers

The Kentucky Writing Development Handbook- by Kentucky Department of Education, 2001

Literacy and Communication Expectations From Kindergarten Through Fifth Grade by American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

 

Instruction in the parallel processes of reading and writing should be based on continuous assessment. The Assessment Flowchart, developed by the District Literacy Committee, provides a list of assessments used to determine students’ instructional levels. Once developmental levels have been identified, differentiation with the classroom should occur to ensure all students are provided instruction at their level, and are afforded the opportunity to meet their potential.

All students should be presented with a wide range of reading experiences involving print and non-print materials encompassing the four assessed areas of reading: Literary, Informational, Persuasive, and Practical/Workplace. These experiences should be provided at all levels through read alouds, shared reading, guided reading (when appropriate) and independent reading.

The Competency Assurance Document for reading is organized into two sections at each level. The first section lists Academic Expectations, the four assessed areas, and the core content for assessment. Most of the core content can be addressed, at even the lowest levels through use of age/level appropriate materials. The weights identified in the Blueprint for Assessment are listed for each type of reading and should be used to drive the instructional time allotted to each of the four assessed areas of reading.

The second section lists the reading skills/processes that are assessed across all types of reading. These skills and processes have been organized into the following strands from Program of Studies: Meaning of Text, Word Attack Strategies (vocabulary and word patterns), Concepts of Print, Experience of Text, Monitoring Strategies, Retelling, Summarizing, Text Structure, Comprehension and Fluency. These strands include the Core Content Reading Skills and Program of Studies’ Skills and Processes. Other essential skills have been organized sequentially to assist teachers in designing instruction. Teachers may, and should, teach from more than one strand at any given time. Due to the nature of the process of reading, students will develop their acquisition of reading skills at different rates. Diagnostic assessments, identified in the Literacy Assessment Flowchart, should be used to determine when skills and processes would be taught to students.

Speaking, listening, observing, inquiry and technology standards, skills and processes should be integrated across all content areas. Students should be provided with the opportunity to apply these skills for a variety of purposes and in multiple settings, Students should be afforded the opportunity to discover, and then communicate ideas and information to a variety of audiences.

Students should be afforded the opportunity to experience the three types of writing mandated by the Kentucky Program of Studies: Writing to Learn, Writing to Demonstrate Learning, and Writing to Communicate Ideas to Authentic Audiences for Authentic Purposes.

The standards for each level are organized into three pages. The first page identifies the Academic Expectations and Core Content for Assessment associated with Writing to Communicate Ideas to Authentic Audiences for Authentic Purposes. The Writing Criteria has been adapted to meet the developmental levels of students. Page two identifies the Academic Expectations for On-Demand Writing, Writing to Learn, and Writing to Demonstrate Learning. The purpose and audience for each type of writing is specified and Activities/Processes that meet Program of Studies are listed beneath each type of writing. These activities were derived from the Kentucky Department of Education’s Writer’s Development Handbook. The final page lists developmentally appropriate Habits, Skills, Processes and Authors’ Craft Strategies at each level, and are derived from the Academic Expectation Demonstrators and Program of Studies Standards.