Author Archives: Aaron Grossman

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About Aaron Grossman

I am a 5th grade teacher at Roy Gomm Elementary in Reno, Nevada. I started working with elementary students as part of the Montana Reads program and AmeriCorps. In 2001, after graduating from the University of Montana and moving to Reno, Nevada, I student taught at Rita Cannan Elementary before receiving a 6th grade position at Veterans Elementary. I moved out of the classroom to be a Literacy Coordinator, then an Instructional Coach, and finally a School Improvement Program Coordinator. In 2011, I began working on the Nevada Academic Content Standards in the district’s Curriculum & Instruction Department. I returned to the classroom for the 2015-2016 school year to teach 4th grade at Huffaker Elementary. Before returning to the classroom, I helped develop the Core Task Project that has been featured by National Public Radio, the Gates Foundation, American Radio Works, Eduwonk, the Fordham Institute, Vox, and the Center for American Progress. In 2014, I received the Leader to Learn From Award for my teacher-centered initiative and work to bring college, career, and civics ready outcomes into Northern Nevada classrooms (here). In 2015, I was appointed by Governor Sandoval serve on the Statewide RPDP Council. The same year, Nevada’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction Steve Canavero placed me on the state’s State Improvement Team. This year I will be part of the National Council on Teacher Quality’s Teacher Advisory Group. I am Google Certified Educator and a Nevada Teacher Ambassador. I believe strongly that teaching content is teaching reading and I make sure my students have ample opportunities to work with social studies, history, science and art outcomes. I do what I can to blend the learning for my students and this blog is part of that effort. You can contact me at coretaskproject@gmail.com

Enough Vocabulary?

Are your kindergarteners working with enough vocabulary? Research by Wright and Neuman, and recently published in the Elementary School Journal, concludes that children are not. Specifically, most reading programs expose children to 2 words each week and it is recommended … Continue reading

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Selecting Texts for Close Reading

Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris outline the importance of picking the right texts for close reading. That is, educators need to be acutely aware that texts worth reading will force students “to look and look again and wonder about what … Continue reading

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Basal Alignment Project at 10,000 Users

EdWeek reports on the Basal Alignment Project growing to 10,000 users. As the article notes, the BAP is “an online library of revised replacement lessons from common basal reading series (3rd-5th grades) each carefully aligned to the Common Core State Standards” … Continue reading

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Social Emotional Learning and the Common Core

The district paired Social Emotional Learning and the Core Task Project as a means of seeing how the two projects could work with each other. Kindergarten through sixth grade teachers gathered and moved through the first day of content which included … Continue reading

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A Volume of Reading

Perry-Lecompton Unified School District created a graphic demonstrating the importance of a volume of reading. You can find the graphic here.  Educators often share with stakeholders that reading a lot is important and the graphic helps make the point.

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Questions and Answers about the CCSS

The former President of the International Reading Association, Dr. Timothy Shanahan, answers a series of questions about the Common Core. The topics include raising text levels for students learning English; the role of literary non-fiction; gradated texts; children reading below … Continue reading

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Expanding Vocabulary

In a piece for City Journal, E.D. Hirch writes about the importance of vocabulary and rich non-fiction text. He notes that the, “correlations between vocabulary size and life chances are as firm as any correlations in educational research.” Academic vocabulary … Continue reading

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Leading the Core: ELA CCSS Session 3

“Leading the Core: ELA CCSS” finished its third session with a focus on creating the Common Core school. Several of the district’s Common Core Champions visited and shared their experience with CCSS outcomes, the instructional shifts, and the close reading … Continue reading

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Implementing CCSS in the Secondary Grades

Angela Orr, Washoe’s Teaching American History Project Director, shared the following for those interested in bringing the CCSS into the secondary grades. (Important tools are linked at the bottom of the post.) In an effort to scale the work of … Continue reading

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Core Shift Blast 9: English Learners and the Common Core

A new Core Shift Blast is available and the focus is on strategies to allow English Learners access to the Common Core. This includes a Position Statement from the ELL Department on the role of close reading and its value … Continue reading

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