LitLife To Assist Schools With Common Core Compliance

April 27, 2011 - PRLog -- Released less than a year ago, the Common Core State Standards build upon the strength of the current standards and will help ensure students read and write well, which will enable the U.S. to remain globally competitive.

About the Common Core State Standards
Beginning in the spring of 2009, Governors and state commissioners of education from 48 states, 2 territories and the District of Columbia committed to developing a common core of state K-12 English-language arts (ELA) and mathematics standards. June 02, 2010, the National Governors Association (NGA) and Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released the final standards.

Internationally benchmarked, the Standards will help prepare students with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in education and training after high school. The Standards are designed to be:

•   Focused, coherent, clear and rigorous
•   Anchored in college and career readiness
•   Evidence and research based

According to NGA, states are making great progress in increasing the academic rigor of education standards, but children are still behind compared to other countries in terms of academic achievement and preparedness to succeed.

“One of the challenges schools face today,” says James Allyn, LitLife co-founder and CEO, “is finding the time and resources to evaluate their curricula against the Common Core and develop a plan of action to ensure their curricula and approach comply.”  

According to LitLife, schools may be anywhere between fifty and eighty percent compliant at this time. To close the gap, LitLife partners with schools to implement best practices and structures for teaching reading and writing. After a careful analysis of a school’s environment, history and curriculum, LitLife works with staff members to enrich teaching methods in reading and writing that align with the Common Core State Standards.

“Creating a reading and writing curriculum that is aligned with Common Core was one of our district’s top priorities,” says Diane Baker of the Ft. Lee School District in New Jersey. “Laurie Pastore, a LitLife consultant, skillfully guided us through a practical and effective step by step curriculum development process.  As a result of our work with LitLife, we produced curriculum maps for reading and writing in grades 5-8 and we are on our way to K-4.”  

“LitLife’s strategy to help schools accomplish compliance is to continue to do what we have been doing for nearly a decade,” says Allyn, “only now with the Common Core State Standards as our guide.”

LitLife also goes one step further: empowering schools with the tools that result in higher-performing students who not only read and write better, but love doing so.

# # #

Founded in 2002, LitLife, one of the nation’s leading educational consulting groups, develops sustainable literacy initiatives alongside teachers, administrators and students. Providing teacher training, professional development, curriculum design, content review and the Complete Writing Assessment, LitLife has brought innovative research-based literacy consulting to thousands of classrooms worldwide. With an unwavering commitment to school improvement in the area of literacy education, LitLife is dedicated to an extraordinary, memorable, equitable education for all children through effective, complete and joyous teacher training. For more information, visit LitLifeInfo.com or call 914-479-0199.