Posted July 13, 2022

by Dean Ballard, Director of Mathematics, CORE

The problem with having students work in groups is getting students to work in groups. Educators have done a great job of overcoming many group-work challenges over the last couple of decades. For example, providing seating arrangements more conducive to collaboration, asking deeper-level questions focused on the why not just the what, and assigning more engaging and investigative tasks. Math curriculum has also evolved to include deeper-level prompts as a standard part of lessons and many exploratory tasks to better develop student reasoning skills. Despite these improvements, often we still are not getting effective student discourse and collaboration in small-group work. Why not?

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Posted May 19, 2022

Welcome to the Spring 2022 edition of the CORE Academic Quarterly newsletter!

In this edition of the Academic Quarterly, the Reading Expert resurfaces an important topic related to the language comprehension portion of Scarborough’s Reading Rope—language structures, or syntax.

The Marvelous Mathematician explores how developing teachers as self-directed learners can help organizations make the necessary changes in teaching approaches to support the increased emphasis on exploration and investigation through equitable and engaging school experiences outlined in many of the new math frameworks and standards that are being adopted.

In the Leadership Corner, you’ll find resources to help navigate next steps in hiring, training, and retaining teachers and other school staff in a time of higher-than-usual vacancies.

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Posted April 20, 2022

Professional learning and job-embedded coaching on how to deliver explicit reading instruction are essential to improving literacy outcomes for all students. But just as critical is the use of high-quality, evidence-based reading curricula, particularly when supporting striving readers at all grade levels. In a time when one in three K–3 students require major and systemic reading intervention, CORE is proud to partner with the Center for the Collaborative Classroom to provide professional learning for their literacy programs, including SIPPS (Systematic Instruction in Phonological Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words) which a recent study found significantly boosts elementary school reading skills. READ MORE

Posted April 14, 2022

by Dr. Claude Goldenberg, Nomellini & Olivier Professor of Education, emeritus, Stanford University

The newest front in the never-ending wars and squabbles over how to teach reading involves English language learners (EL), students learning to read (and write) in English while simultaneously learning to speak and understand it.

In the wake of renewed prominence of research supporting an early focus on phonics and decoding (aka the “science of reading”), EL advocates around the country have been sounding alarms. READ MORE

Posted April 11, 2022

A remembrance by Linda Diamond, former president of CORE, Inc.

Almost 28 years ago while I was a senior policy analyst, sitting in my office at RPP International, a California education public policy think tank, I heard a commanding voice berating my boss, Paul Berman, for failing to address the most important policy issue of the time. The woman was Marion Joseph, a California grandmother who saw a serious problem—California’s children were not learning to read. Marion saw this firsthand when she discovered that her beloved grandson struggled to learn to read. He was not alone. California’s reading scores were in the tank, so Marion made it her mission to learn from researchers how reading should be taught. She soon understood that whole language was not the way, and she was determined to do something about it. At that moment, 28 years ago, CORE was born. READ MORE