6th Grade - Gateway 3

The instructional materials for Grade 6 meet the criteria that materials are well-designed and take into account effective lesson structure and pacing.

Grade 6 materials contain four units, each with a range of 15-19 Activities or lessons and two Embedded Assessments designed with a consistent instructional plan. Each of the units is divided into two halves with each half concluding with one of the two embedded assessments. Each unit opens with Planning the Unit and Unit Overview for teacher guidance. Planning the Unit describes all instructional and assessment goals for the unit and provides pacing for the unit as well as the list of texts. The Unit Overview provides a descriptive narrative of the unit’s breadth and a sequential listing of unit activities and associated texts. Instructional activities are designed to be delivered over single and multiple days while the lessons within activities are designed for a 50-minute class period which is indicated within the Teacher Wrap, “an instructional roadmap alongside the student pages.”

The first lesson in each unit provides learners with a preview of the unit’s general learning targets and learning strategies and is followed by Making Connections to develop links between new learning, existing knowledge, and the culminating assessments. Thereafter, each activity or lesson opens with an introduction of specific learning targets, followed by a specific learning strategy, grammar structure, or reading strategy, and the establishment of the reading purpose. The prereading activities are followed by the text or texts, Second Read questions, Working from the Text practice, and Writing to Sources, all crafted to support learning targets in developing literacy skills. The pacing of individual lessons is appropriate for classes with time allowed for supplementary activities as well.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 6 meet the criteria that the teacher and student can reasonably complete the content within a regular school year and the pacing allows for maximum student understanding.

The four-unit curriculum can be effectively delivered over the course of a 30-36 week academic year allowing sufficient time for practice with instructional materials to ensure opportunities for standards’ mastery by the end of the course. Instructional Activities and Pacing Guide, provided in Planning the Unit, indicates the total number of 50-minute class periods for the unit’s completion and further delineates the associated activity number and suggested class periods for delivery of those lessons. Additionally, Teacher Wrap, within the margins of the Teacher’s Edition, indicates the time to be allotted for each lesson and offers support for block scheduling by indicating combinations of 50-minute sessions or extensions of lessons, optional instructional materials, and the expectation of homework as part of enrichment and/or the class assignment.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 6 meet the criteria that the student resources include ample review and practice resources, clear directions, and explanation, and correct labeling of reference aids (e.g., visuals, maps, etc.).

Grade 6 materials include a variety of resources demonstrating specific and clear directions, easy-to-find references and accurate labels. Other resources available to students include text collections, close reading, performance tasks, independent reading plans, digital interactive tools such as Writer’s Notebook, text boxes to record answers, and highlighting tools for annotations.

Close reading material in the form of Second Read questions provide students with questions for key details, craft, and structure designed to engage students in careful textual analysis. Text-dependent and text-specific writing opportunities and writing workshops appear with regularity throughout the units to deepen thought and allow practice with newly taught skills as well as integration of ideas among concepts and skills. Directions for activities are clear and often make use of graphic organizers and rubrics to help students more clearly see the relationship among concepts as well as understand the expectations set before them.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 6 meet the criteria for materials including publisher-produced alignment documentation of the standards addressed by specific questions, tasks, and assessment items.

Examples of materials of publisher-produced alignment documentation of the standards addressed include, but are not limited to the Common Core Correlations page, which can be found next to the login portal on the homepage of Springboard Digital and a list of Common Core focus standards and additional Common Core Standards addressed for each activity in the Teacher Wrap for the activity.

Additionally, California ELD standards are included in the nine ELD activities in each unit.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 6 meet the criteria that materials contain a teacher's edition with ample and useful annotations and suggestions on how to present the content in the student edition and in the ancillary materials.

Grade 6 materials contain a teacher’s edition with useful annotations and suggestions on how to present the content in the student edition and in the ancillary materials. Where applicable, materials include teacher guidance for the use of embedded technology to support and enhance student learning.

Planning the Unit, opening each of the four units, offers teachers a roadmap in preparation for the unit’s presentation while Teacher Wrap and Teacher to Teacher, both found in the digital and print versions, provide teachers daily step-by-step instructions for delivery. Sample student responses are found in the digital teacher edition.

In addition to detailing discrete components of the unit, e.g., goals, pacing, assessments, etc., Planning the Unit unpacks the Embedded Assessments, suggests texts for independent reading, lists English Language Development resources available for each activity, describes instructional activities within the pacing guide, suggests advance preparation of learning guides for differentiated instruction, provides a detailed unpacking of language demands for Embedded Assessments, and suggests cognates appropriate to the unit for inclusion on a word wall.

Daily support and suggestions are provided to the teacher through Teacher Wrap and Teacher to Teacher following Springboard’s 4-step approach to instruction: Plan--Teach--Assess--Adapt. Additionally, the marginal guides offer suggestions for student support with instruction on approaches found effective for other teachers and methods for scaffolding questions to differentiate instruction to support of student learning. For example, in Unit 1 Activity 4, Teacher Wrap suggests, “If students need additional help completing the writing prompt, have them work with partners and provide them with a Narrative Analysis and Writing graphic organizer. Have them work together to organize the events of their alternate endings into the Incident-response-reflection structure.”

Within the teacher edition, sample responses to Second Read questions and completed graphic organizers provide teachers an indication of what student responses should include.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 6 meet the criteria that materials contain a teacher’s edition that contains full, adult-level explanations and examples of the more advanced literacy concepts so that teachers can improve their own knowledge of the subject, as necessary.

Grade 6 materials contain a teacher’s edition that supports teacher knowledge regarding the relevance of academic vocabulary as well as knowledge differentiating between Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary, i.e. “Academic Vocabulary features that discuss Tier Two terms and concepts that students will use in academic discourse” and “Literary Term features that equip students with Tier Three language from the domains of literature, literary analysis, writing, and rhetoric.” Additionally, the front matter establishes the relevance of text features and rigor to preparation for College and Career Readiness. Key Themes of English Language Arts Instruction explains, “SpringBoard is designed to help students make meaning of complex texts and prepare them for the rigorous textual analysis expected of them in Advanced Placement (AP) English and college courses. The skills students acquire in SpringBoard allow them to think critically about and respond thoughtfully to important topics in all disciplines, and in society.”

The teacher edition end matter provides teachers with a complete list of reading and writing strategies both defining strategies and establishing purpose behind the strategies. An example includes:

• The definition of the SIFT reading strategy is “Analyzing a fictional text by examining stylistic elements, especially symbol, imagery, and figures of speech in order to show how all work together to reveal tone and theme” and its purpose is “To focus and facilitate an analysis of a fictional text by examining the title and text for symbolism, identifying images and sensory details, analyzing figurative language and identifying how all these elements reveal tone and theme.”

Teacher Wrap provides teachers with information necessary to frame lessons and establish relevance for students. An examples include:

• In Unit 1, Activity 1.6 teachers are provided framing in Step 7: “You will note that the incident in this narrative is minimal; the majority of the narrative is concerned with response, and the reflection is implied by the image of the 'ugly brother' in paragraph 10. As students read paragraphs 2-5, they should mark the text by highlighting all the descriptions of the jacket—adjectives, colors, and so on—watching especially for similes. Discuss with students the overall impression of the jacket created by Soto’s descriptions.”

Additionally, as learning strategies are introduced to students, Teacher Wrap provides modeling guidance. An example includes:

• In Unit 2, Activity 4b, the Teacher Wrap guides modeling annotating: “Introduce the annotating activity by calling students’ attention to the directions. Read the directions aloud. Then model annotating the first and second paragraphs of the text for students doing a think aloud. Circle words that might be unfamiliar or unknown to students, such as bangs, naturally, and whang-doodle. Use the notes section to ask a question, such as Why did everybody keep touching Sal’s hair?”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 6 meet the criteria that materials contain a teacher’s edition that explains the role of the specific ELA/literacy standards in the context of the overall curriculum.

Grade 6 materials contain a teacher’s edition that explains the role of the specific ELA/literacy standards in the context of the overall curriculum. Connections between specific ELA/literacy standards and the context of the overall curriculum are offered within the Teacher Edition Front Matter, Planning the Unit, and Teacher Wrap. Specifically, the Teacher Edition Front Matter explains the “instructional design assures teachers and students that everyday activities are building a foundation of skills and knowledge that will help students perform on the assessments, which ultimately align with the standards” and promises to help “students develop the knowledge and skills needed for Advanced Placement as well as for success in college and beyond without remediation.” The Front Matter continues by explaining, “While not every student will take an AP class, we believe strongly that ALL students should be equipped with the higher-order thinking skills, knowledge, and behaviors necessary to be successful in AP classes and post-secondary education. SpringBoard focuses on content connections, pre-AP strategies, and writing tasks anchored in the skills and knowledge necessary to be successful on the AP exams.”

Planning the Unit provides a list of activities within the unit that focus on refining “important skills and knowledge areas for AP/College Readiness.” Clickable CC icons linked to standards associated with the task at hand are included in the margin of the online teacher’s edition.

Teacher Wrap lists Focus Standards and Additional Standards Addressed at the beginning of each lesson. Within the instructional guide are also listed the Common Core standards associated with each of the Second Read questions.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 6 meet the criteria that materials contain explanations of the instructional approaches of the program and identifying research-based strategies.

Grade 6 materials contain explanations of the instructional approaches of the program and identification of the research based strategies. The Teacher Edition Front Matter provides both clear explanation of instructional approaches and identification of research-based strategies relied on throughout the text.

Additionally, the text provides an explanation for Springboard’s instructional approach. The section “Research-Based Pedagogy” sites the use of Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design instructional model and the American Institute for Research “focus on students moving through multiple levels of cognitive engagement: progressing fluidly from understanding and comprehension, to analysis, and ultimately to synthesis.” Springboard also sites application of Charlotte Danielson’s facilitation and flexibility methodologies, Marzano and Pickering’s research on “building students’ background knowledge in the area of Academic Vocabulary development” and “Robyn Jackson’s work on rigorous instruction.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 6 meet the criteria that materials regularly and systematically offer assessment opportunities that genuinely measure student progress.

Grade 6 materials regularly and systematically offer assessment opportunities that genuinely measure student progress. Short-cycle and long-term assessments integrated within each of the four units provide opportunities for measuring student progress both formatively and summatively. Short-cycle assessments allowing teachers to measure student proficiencies and adjust or adapt instructional methods. Long-term assessments are offered twice during the unit, one midway through the unit’s activities and the second at the unit’s end. Most activities/lessons feature Check Your Understanding and Writing to Sources. Lessons and related formative assessments preceding the embedded assessments typically lead towards the culminating performance task.

Also provided within the program materials are supplementary workshops for close reading, writing, and foundational skills as well as supplementary materials for grammar instruction. Each of these lesson sets also include assessment components consistent with the organization and structure of the core curriculum. Additionally, the Springboard Digital dashboard provides an Assessments link offering teachers short-cycle End of Lesson/Activity assessments and End of Unit assessments as well as choices between Springboard developed assessments or custom-built assessments.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 6 meet the criteria that assessments clearly denote which standards are being emphasized.

Grade 6 assessments clearly denote which standards are being emphasized. Common Core Standards emphasized by instruction and assessment are noted in the Common Core Correlations chart found on the Springboard Digital log-in page. Each ELA Common Core Standard is correlated to unit and activity numbers and/or embedded assessments (denoted by EA) addressing the listed standard. Additionally, Teacher Wrap lists both Focus Standards and Additional Standards Addressed for each embedded assessment.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 6 meet the criteria that assessments provide sufficient guidance to teachers for interpreting student performance and suggestions for follow-up.

Grade 6 assessments provide sufficient guidance to teachers for interpreting student performance and suggestions for follow up. Springboard’s four-step structure, Plan-Teach-Assess-Adapt, provides a road map towards assessment that includes checkpoints and suggestions for adapting lessons and strengthening student skills before they are asked to demonstrate specific skills on culminating embedded assessments. The progression of these four steps is found in Teacher Wrap on the margins of the digital page of the Teacher Edition. An example includes:

• After following Plan and Teach steps in Unit 1 Activity 4, teachers are instructed in Assess to “Use the written Check Your Understanding responses to assess your students’ ability to summarize what the narrator learns from the incident in the story. The summaries should include a description of the event, the narrator’s response, and the lesson he learned. Students should include details from the text to support their statements.” After the assessment, teachers are instructed in the Adapt step: “If students need additional help summarizing what the narrator learns from the story, have them work with a partner. First, they should make a checklist of all of the components of the summary. Then, as they complete the summary, they can check off the components they have used.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 6 meet the criteria that materials should include routines and guidance that point out opportunities to monitor student progress.

Grade 6 materials include routines and guidance that point out opportunities to monitor student progress. Teacher Wrap indicates opportunities for monitoring student progress in reading and expression of ideas. Teacher Wrap provides sequentially detailed steps for teaching each lesson. Included within instructional notes for teachers are guides and prompts for monitoring student progress. Additionally, instructional notes indicate what teachers should be monitoring. An example includes:

• In Unit 2 Activity 3, teachers are encouraged to follow up on the lesson, “You might wish to work through another sample entry to be sure students have grasped the process and purpose of this strategy. The sample could serve as a model.” The Assess portion of the Teacher Wrap indicates what teachers should be assessing with each activity and suggestions for how to adapt the lesson if students are struggling or need more practice.

The Front Matter of the teacher edition introduces teachers to two supplemental resources that “support the development of foundational reading skills for students who need continued support with these foundations to become successful at the secondary level.” The first of these resources is the Foundational Skills Workshop which “supports teachers in planning and delivering intervention instruction to those students who will benefit from one-on-one or small-group lessons in phonics, word recognition, and fluency.” These materials include Observational Look-Fors, Foundational Reading Skills Screening Assessment, Diagnostic Checklist, Individual Progress Monitoring Chart, and Group Planning Chart. The second resource is Routines for Teaching Foundational Skills which “presents mini-lessons and techniques that teachers can incorporate into the core ELA instruction to differentiate for students who need it.”

The teacher edition provides an Independent Reading Log for students to record “progress and thinking” about “independent reading during each unit.” Also provided are a range of graphic organizers for ELA and ELD tasks that can be used to monitor student reading and understanding before moving students into writing assignments.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 6 meet the criteria that materials provide teachers with strategies for meeting the needs of range of learners so the content is accessible to all learners and supports them in meeting or exceeding the grade-level standards.

Grade 6 materials provides accessible content through the integration of texts at varied Lexile level in the core curriculum and as suggested titles for independent reading. The unit texts range from slightly below grade level, typically used with introducing a new concept, to at grade level and above grade level. The Practice of Reading Closely, found in the teacher edition Front Matter explains the range of texts as a means of bringing “readers up to the level of the text, not the level of the text down to the reader.” Each unit also offers a list of narrative and expository suggested texts for the Independent Reading Assignments, along with Lexile levels, occurring twice in each unit. As in the core curriculum, suggested texts range from below grade level to above grade level allowing students to choose a text of interest that also connects at reading level.

Teachers are provided with strategies to support learners within the core curriculum and through the Teacher Resources tab on the Springboard Digital dashboard. Within the core curriculum, Teacher Wrap provides step-by-step guidance in teaching each lesson. Within most steps, teachers are offered advice, alternatives, suggestions for connecting new and existing knowledge and skills, and methods for scaffolding in class-reading and assignments. Additionally, Teacher to Teacher and Leveled Differentiated Instruction call out boxes within Teacher Wrap provide specific instruction and guidance for learners needing extra support and English language development. English Language Learners are further supported by specific lessons connected to three Anchor texts from each unit. These lessons focus on Academic Vocabulary, Close Reading, and Collaborative Discussions.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 6 meet the criteria that materials provide all students, including those who read, write, speak, or listen below grade level, or in a language other than English, with extensive opportunities to work with grade level text and meet or exceed grade-level standards.

Grade 6 materials regularly provide all students, including those who read, write, speak, or listen below grade level or in a language other than English with extensive opportunities to work with grade level text and meet or exceed grade-level standards. The Front Matter of the teacher edition outlines where English Language Learner resources are located in the materials. The following resources are available:

• Planning: In the Planning the Unit section, a list of academic and literary terms for each unit are given along with the Spanish cognates, where available. Audio pronunciation is available in both English and Spanish, as well as audio definitions in English. Content vocabulary specific to anthology texts is provided at point of use, with audio pronunciation and definitions available in digital edition, as well as definitions and cognates where available. Unit overview provides a list of Graphic Organizers that English Language Learners will need to be successful in each unit.
• Leveled Differentiated Instruction: Color-coded sidebars in digital Teacher Wrap offer numerous and extensive suggestions and activities for five levels of language proficiency; Level 1 representing initial stage of language development, Level 5 representing the stage nearest to proficiency, as well as Support and Extend suggestions. These features found throughout materials scaffold challenging tasks embedded in the program, “providing the tools that learners at various levels of proficiency need in order to successfully participate in or complete tasks that build toward culminating assessment.” These strategies can be adapted to other tasks throughout the materials. “As students move along this continuum of proficiency, teachers can select flexibly form the leveled scaffolding options provided in order to offer the amount of support that enables students to complete the task successfully while still being appropriately challenged.” Further support is given for each text in anthology, where Teacher Wrap offers Scaffolding the Text Dependent Questions, strategies to help struggling students locate text evidence by rephrasing, chunking, and scaffolding questions.
• English Language Development Activities: Every unit features a set of nine English Language Development Activities that teachers can use to provide differentiated support to students who are developing academic English. These interactive, digital activities are built around three unit texts and support students’ comprehension with guided close reading. They use a scaffolded approach focused on academic and social vocabulary development, text analysis, and collaborative academic discourse. California’s English Language Development Standards are provided in Teacher Wrap alongside each lesson, as well as in teacher and student edition under lesson title. Strategies for specific Emerging, Expanding, and Bridging levels of English Language Development are provided in Teacher Wrap alongside each lesson, with most tasks and targets focused on the Production Strand.
• English Language Development Graphic Organizers: These are tools teachers can use to scaffold reading, writing, speaking and listening tasks, suggestions for specific organizers are given in Unit Opener section of each unit.
• English Language Development Strategies: Located at point of use of content vocabulary, such as "bracero.” These are techniques teachers can use to boost students’ ability and confidence with academic language.
• Language Demands of the Embedded Assessment: This is an unpacking of the Embedded Assessments that specifies the word-, sentence-, and text-level features of the academic language that students need to develop as they work through the unit.
• Initial Screening Assessment: A screening tool that provides teachers with essential information about students’ education history, home language proficiency, and English language proficiency.
• Foundational Skills Workshops and Routines for Teaching Foundational Skills: Online materials that offer guidance to teachers on how to support students who need continued practice with literacy foundations to become successful at the secondary level, such as left to right text directionality, and conventions of punctuation and capitalization in American English.
• Family Letters: Customizable letter templates in both English and Spanish that help teachers connect with families to encourage their active engagement in students’ learning.
• Zinc: Online program provides targeted vocabulary and informational text instruction.
• Workshops: Online Writing and Close Reading Workshops specifically target writing and reading genres.
• Teacher Resources: This tab at each grade level is an English-Spanish Glossary, although currently, the resource bears a 2014 copyright. Also provided is a Flexible Novel Unit allowing teachers to replace the novel suggested in the core curriculum with a novel differentiating for student needs. The Flexible Novel Unit provides a teacher planning dashboard, a student view of the adjusted embedded assessment, and a teacher view complete with marginalia guidance following the four-step Plan-Teach-Assess-Adapt protocol. Materials for grammar instruction and interventions (also provided in the teacher edition End Matter) and learning strategies are included.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 6 meet the criteria of providing ample opportunities for teachers to use grouping strategies during lessons.

Grade 6 materials provide opportunities for teachers to use a variety of grouping strategies. Every lesson offers opportunities for students to work in groups whether reading, writing, or speaking and listening about texts. “Specific strategies for collaboration and oral communication are taught and practiced leading to the development of independent, skillful conduct of academic discussions.”

Both the teacher edition and student edition regularly and repeatedly ask students to work as partners and in small groups. Among the means used to and for grouping are Think-Pair-Share, heterogeneous groups, simple partnering, forming small groups based on interest, working as whole class in discussions and guided writing, and forming jigsaw groups to build and share information and ideas. Additionally, students are grouped for purposes of peer editing and feedback, practice with speaking and speech delivery, and reading discussion groups. Specific support for English Language Learners is provided with three Collaborative Discussion lessons in each unit, tied directly to core texts.