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Introduction

Overview

The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010) reflect the knowledge and skills that all students, including English language learners (ELLs), need for success in college and careers. This resource guide is intended to explain and demonstrate how ELLs can be supported in meeting the New York State P–12 Common Core Learning Standards (NYS CCLS), New York State’s version of these standards.
Although all students will need support at the word, sentence, and text levels to meet these new, challenging standards, ELLs will benefit from additional support because they are learning language and content in their new language concurrently. All students need support at the word level to deal with words with multiple meanings, unfamiliar vocabulary, and archaic language (see Fisher, Frey, & Lapp, 2012); ELLs benefit from additional support because they will encounter many more general academic and domain-specific words that are unfamiliar, greatly reducing comprehension. At the sentence level, all students need support to master sophisticated figurative language and nonstandard dialects of English (Fisher, Frey, & Lapp, 2012). ELLs will benefit from additional support to help them understand the complex syntax of English characterized by compound and complex sentences. Finally, at the text level, all students need support to comprehend text that distorts the organization of time (e.g., flashbacks or foreshadowing), uses few text features or graphics, has multiple levels of meaning, or addresses topics that require specialized content knowledge (Fisher, Frey, & Lapp, 2012). ELLs will benefit from additional support to understand English text because of its extensive use of reference chains where the same people, things, or events are linked throughout a text using pronouns (e.g., he, they, it) or the same concepts are linked using multiple expressions.
The resource guide begins by describing research-based scaffolds and routines that will assist ELLs in meeting the NYS CCLS and mastering the New York State Common Core English Language Arts curriculum. Scaffolds are defined as temporary instructional supports that help make rigorous grade-level curriculum accessible to all students, including ELLs. The scaffolding techniques and routines for ELLs included here are based on recent research on effective instructional methods for supporting ELLs. The guide then explains how scaffolding has been differentiated to meet the needs of ELLs at different levels of English proficiency. Finally, the guide presents six English languages arts prototypes that demonstrate how the scaffolds have been applied to lessons developed by Core Knowledge, Expeditionary Learning, and Public Consulting Group for New York State. It explains the conventions used to insert scaffolds into the lessons. The following table displays the English language arts prototypes by grade span.