As a third-grade teacher at an inter-district magnet school, Brennan Rogers Magnet School of Arts, Communication and Media, in New Haven, Connecticut I am faced with many challenges. It is often difficult for students to successfully complete tasks across content areas because literacy is embedded in nearly all subject areas. Brennan Rogers was at one time a Tier 4 school and was subjected to the turnaround process in accordance to the "No Child Left Behind Act." Over the past several years our school has made significant gains; test scores have consistently increased each year, and parents are more involved. Although we have made great progress, we still have a wide range of (reading/literacy) skill levels and a small population of students who struggle academically. My classroom is a mirror image of the overall learning community at Brennan Rogers: there is a wide range of skill levels and abilities in my classroom. Students' Lexile levels can range between zero and nine hundred fifty. A tremendous amount of funds have been allocated and invested for the betterment of our school. The school has spent a substantial amount of federal funds and the district has spent a great deal of money developing a new literacy curriculum for grades 3-5 and the Plugged in Curriculum as a resource to implement the newly designed curriculum. The New Haven curriculum and the Plugged In program provide a wealth of resources in alignment with the Common Core. Janet Allen's Plugged In Curriculum consist of audio books, organizers, detailed lessons for group and independent reading lessons. Some of these lessons include previewing text features. Needless to say, we have access to an array of lesson plans, organizers and handouts for teachers to utilize in order to provide students with effective instruction concerning text features and the use of illustrations.
Although it seems as if we have a great amount of resources to help teach the Common Core Standards, I found that there was something the curriculum and Plugged-In materials didn't help my students. I realized that my students need more exposure and specific lessons on text features. I realized that students need explicit teaching on using illustrations, photographs with captions, and most importantly, reading the tables, timelines, and charts.