Targeted Resources for Common Core
Reading A-Z created the resources listed here to focus on skills and strategies stressed in the Common Core State Standards. The resources also help meet English Language Arts standards in states that have not adopted Common Core. Reading A-Z is committed to supporting educators as they prepare students to be college and career ready after graduation.
Why Use Reading A-Z for Common Core
Our Common Core Standards pages explain in-depth how Reading A-Z provides what you need to meet the key instructional shifts of the Common Core State Standards in the areas of foundational skills, informational text, text complexity, close reading, text-dependent questions, academic vocabulary, writing, and assessment.
Our vast collection of resources provides opportunities for practicing skills expected on new standardized tests.
- Close examination of text
- Mastery of complex literary and informational reading
- Inferring meaning from what is read
- Answering text-dependent questions
- Building arguments using evidence from the text
How to Use Reading A-Z for Common Core
Reading A-Z offers an extensive collection of 800+ nonfiction books, including informational texts in a variety of genres covering an array of topics. All books are available in both printable and projectable formats, and the Learning A-Z Text Leveling System ensures books gradually increase in complexity over levels.
- Leveled Books with lessons target specific skills and strategies along with supporting worksheets, a graphic organizer, a set of discussion cards and a comprehension quiz.
- Lesson Supplements for a selection of both nonfiction and fiction Leveled Books address specific key shifts of lesson instruction. Each supplement features text-dependent questions, a written response to reading, and academic vocabulary words important to discussing the book.
- Comprehension Skill Packs provide direct and explicit instruction on up to 16 different comprehension skills to support your students' close reading of any text.
- Visual Devices feature explicit instruction on informational text elements, such as graphs, charts, maps, schedules, or other visual texts.
- Keep a checklist of high-frequency words. When a student learns a word, meaning they can read it quickly and efficiently, or write it without seeing the word, check off the word and move on to the next one.
- Our Paired Books lessons include a set of text-dependent questions that require students to closely read and compare and contrast two related texts.
Other Common Core Resources
- Support an array of Foundational Skills with resources for Phonological Awareness, Alphabet, Phonics, High-Frequency Words, and Fluency
- Shared Reading Books and lessons teach foundational skills, including concepts of print. They also help our youngest learners begin reading text more closely. Each five-day lesson plan includes a section devoted to text-dependent questions. A second projectable version of each book includes character prompts. The characters ask the reader to complete tasks and interact with the book.
- Writer's Responses for select titles from levels E-Z encourage students to reflect on the deeper meaning of each book read. Prompts support writing that applies, synthesizes, or evaluates a book's enduring understanding.
- Graphic organizers for any text support close reading instruction and practice.