Synopses & Reviews
Be Core Ready: Powerful, Effective Steps to Implementing and Achieving Common Core State Standards
Pam Allyn
This compelling book is the foundation for The Core Ready Program. A powerful resource, Be Core Ready: Powerful, Effective Steps to Implementing and Achieving Common Core State Standards provides a dynamic road map of the hot topics for literacy education in the era of the Common Core Standards and provides practical strategies for implementing new core ideas that will transform all learners into scholars who are truly college and career ready--reading and writing, speaking and listening, and using language in powerful ways.
About the Program:
Core Ready is a dynamic series of books providing educators with critical tools for navigating the Common Core Standards effectively, fluidly, and successfully. In the pages of these books, readers see how to take complex concepts related to the standards and turn them into practical, specific, everyday instruction. The series is founded on the author’s 4 Doors to Core Ready, an easy to use yet strikingly brilliant way to access and organize all of the content within the standards:
Core Ready Lesson Sets for Grades 3-5: A Staircase to Standards Success:
- The Journey to Meaning: Comprehension and Critique
- The Shape of Story: Yesterday and Today
- The Road to Knowledge: Information and Research
- The Power to Persuade: Opinion and Argument
“[T]his is a great way to teach ELA…. a group of teachers could use this to change their core reading program... I see this as a way to truly become a reader and writer for today’s world.”
-- Edward Karl Shultz, Midwestern State University
“This book is so inspiring! I hope many districts adopt your program! It will change the lives of many students for the better!”
-- Elizabeth Smith, Madison Elementary School (VA)
Pam Allyn is an authority in the field of literacy education and the world’s expert in home and school literacy connections. As a renowned motivational speaker, expert consultant, author, teacher, and humanitarian advocating for children, she is transforming the way we think about literacy as a tool for communication and knowledge building.
Pam currently serves as the executive director of LitLife, a national literacy development organization providing research-based professional development for K-12 educators. She founded and leads LitWorld, a groundbreaking global literacy initiative which reaches children across the United States and in over 60 countries. Her methods for helping all students achieve success as literacy learners, including the most diverse learners, has brought her acclaim both in the United States and internationally.
Pam is the author of 11 books for educators and parents including the award-winning What To Read When: The Books and Stories To Read With Your Child-And All The Best Times To Read Them (Penguin Avery), Pam Allyn's Best Books for Boys (Scholastic), and Your Child’s Writing Life: How to Inspire Confidence, Creativity, and Skill at Every Age (Penguin Avery). Her work has been featured on Good Morning America, The Today Show, Oprah Radio, the Huffington Post, The New York Times and across the blogosphere.
Review
CORE READY:
“[T]his is a great way to teach ELA…. a group of teachers could use this to change their core reading program... I see this as a way to truly become a reader and writer for today’s world.”
-- Edward Karl Shultz, Midwestern State University
“This book is so inspiring! I hope many districts adopt your program! It will change the lives of many students for the better!”
-- Elizabeth Smith, Madison Elementary School (VA)
CORE READY LESSON SETS:
3-5 Books:
“[This is an] innovative text that effectively presents reading and writing as what they truly are: vital tools that our students need in order to live successful lives. It calls upon students to become active lifelong learners and challenges them to extend their reading and writing abilities. Its lessons give students the “hands on approach” that is needed to motivate them to become effective analysts and authors…. Most importantly, all literacy skills taught in this text are presented in the same way that our students will see them in their adult lives. This book will bring life into your reading and writing workshops. This is the text that all effective teachers have been asking and waiting for.”
“I love what this book stands for academically. I love how easy it is to follow. I love how it contains everything from the pre-assessment of a skill until the final rubric. This book would allow me to spend more time teaching and less time planning/preparing. A home run for both me and my students.”
-- Elizabeth Smith, Madison Elementary School (VA)
“Inspiring. Genuine. Talking from down in the trenches not from up on high. Brings the Common Core down from the rafters for a more manageable understanding.”
-- Wendy Fiore, Chester Elementary School (CT)
“I would strongly recommend it to colleagues and my administration because I feel it would be a resource series that would ultimately improve the way I teach literacy. I haven’t felt that way about a PD book since grad school.”
-- Katie Lynn Klaus, M.S.Ed
Synopsis
KEY BENEFIT Provides a transformational solution for how all students can achieve and exceed Common Core Standards through the new Core Ready program, a series of lesson sets organized around the groundbreaking 4 Doors to Core Ready. All Core Ready students will ascend the staircase of literacy learning, thanks to the lessons and action steps provided by Pam Allyn's Core Ready approach. This book sets the stage for the author's Core Ready program, but can also stand alone as a seminal guide to what to teach and how to teach it in the era of core literacies. The following books in the series, all chock full of Core Ready integrated literacy lessons, include
The Journey to Meaning: Comprehension and Critique, The Shape of Story: Yesterday and Today, The Road to Knowledge: Information and Research, and The Power to Persuade: Opinion and Argument.
KEY TOPICS Common Core Standards, close reading, text complexity, differentiation for ELL and special needs students, persuasive writing, classic and contemporary literacy analysis, early literacy skill building, meaningful assessment, and the role of new media in literacy learning
MARKET Teachers, administrative leaders, literacy coaches, ELL specialists, special educators, media specialists, reading teachers, content area teachers, professors, students of education, plus parents and caregivers. Synopsis
Be Core Ready: Powerful, Effective Steps to Implementing and Achieving the Common Core State Standards is a transformational book for teachers, administrative leaders, literacy coaches, ELL specialists, special educators, media specialists, reading teachers, content area teachers, and families. In a teacher-friendly, conversational style, this book, provides a clear understanding of the most compelling topics emerging from the Common Core State Standards and introduces the groundbreaking 4 Doors to Core Ready approach to solving the questions of what to teach and how to teach it in this new era. The book addresses curriculum, close reading, text complexity, care for ELL and special needs students, meaningful assessment, and the active and meaningful use of technology and literature to help all students meet and exceed the standards.
Visit http: //pdtoolkit.pearson.com to purchase access to the
PDToolkit for Pam Allyn's Core Ready Series. The PDToolkit access does not come with the print book.
PDToolkit for Pam Allyn's Core Ready Series is a supplemental online subscription-based resource that provides the tools that educators need to implement the Common Core Standards effectively, fluidly, and successfully. The PDToolkit, together with the texts, provides the tools you need to ensure a standards-aligned year of joyful, effective, research-based literacy curriculum.
Synopsis
Be Core Ready: Powerful, Effective Steps to Implementing and Achieving Common Core State Standards is a transformational book for teachers, administrative leaders, literacy coaches, ELL specialists, special educators, media specialists, reading teachers, content area teachers, and families. In a teacher-friendly, conversational style, this book, provides a clear understanding of the most compelling topics emerging from the Common Core Standards and introduces the groundbreaking 4 Doors to Core Ready approach to solving the questions of what to teach and how to teach it in this new era. The book addresses curriculum, close reading, text complexity, care for ELL and special needs students, meaningful assessment, and the active and meaningful use of technology and literature to help all students meet and exceed the standards.
Synopsis
Created specifically for middle school teachers, Pam Allyn’s dynamic Core Ready Program provides a complete toolkit for navigating and thriving with the core standards. In it teachers see clearly how to take complex concepts of the literacy standards and turn them into practical, specific, everyday instruction. The series is organized around the author’s Four Doors to the Core:
- The Journey to Meaning: Comprehension and Critique
- The Shape of Story: Contemporary and Classical
- The Road to Knowledge: Information and Research
- The Power to Persuade: Opinion and Argument
Each book in the series includes powerful reading, writing, speaking, and listening sets; assessment rubrics; support for ELLs and diverse learners; and tips for doing high tech variations for literacy instruction for grades 6, 7, and 8.
About the Author
Pam Allyn is an authority in the field of literacy education and the world’s expert in home and school literacy connections. As a renowned motivational speaker, expert consultant, author, teacher, and humanitarian advocating for children, she is transforming the way we think about literacy as a tool for communication and knowledge building.
Pam currently serves as the executive director of LitLife, a national literacy development organization providing research-based professional development for K-12 educators. She founded and leads LitWorld, a groundbreaking global literacy initiative which reaches children across the United States and in over 60 countries. Her methods for helping all students achieve success as literacy learners, including the most diverse learners, has brought her acclaim both in the United States and internationally.
Pam is the author of 11 books for educators and parents including the award-winning What To Read When: The Books and Stories To Read With Your Child-And All The Best Times To Read Them (Penguin Avery), Pam Allyn's Best Books for Boys (Scholastic), and Your Child’s Writing Life: How to Inspire Confidence, Creativity, and Skill at Every Age (Penguin Avery). Her work has been featured on Good Morning America, The Today Show, Oprah Radio, the Huffington Post, The New York Times and across the blogosphere.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Note to Readers: Welcome to Core Ready
Introduction: The Core Student: Dynamic Commitments for a New Century
Chapter 1: Ensuring College and Career Readiness
Chapter 2: The 4 Doors to Core Ready: A Fresh Look at the Standards with New Curriculum
Chapter 3: 8 Core Shifts—Paradigm Changes for 21st Century Learning and How to Make Them Happen
Chapter 4: Action Steps for the Core Ready Classroom and the Core Ready Community
Chapter 5: The Staircase of Text Complexity: The Bold Reader Navigates a Bold New World
Chapter 6: Argument and Evidence: The Bold Writer Crafts a Bold New World
Chapter 7: Technology and New Media: The Bold Scholar Creates a Bold New World
Chapter 8: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening: Powerful Lesson Sets to Meet and Exceed Standards
Chapter 9: Close Reading: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Do It
Chapter 10: Empowering ELL Core Learners
Chapter 11: Differentiating With Passion and Purpose for Special Needs Scholars
Chapter 12: Close Reading of Students—Making Assessment Matter
Chapter 13: The Power is in the Core: Reaching for the Stars