Choosing K-8 textbook lessons important for Common Core

The Common Core standards do not tell you how to teach, but they do tell you what to teach. If you are confused about what topics are important, this post can help you.

First of all, let me warn you not to depend on a correlation from the publisher! If the publisher updated textbooks instead of designing a brand new series, be especially wary. Because each change to a textbook affects supplements as well, a publisher trying to meet new standards at minimal cost may keep unneeded lessons and just add "gap" lessons. Many parts of the publisher's correlation may be "stretched." For example, the publisher may correlate a lesson to mathematical practices (problem solving) even when most of the lesson content is not required by CCSS until a later grade. Perhaps only a small part of a lesson is required for CCSS.

The math standards are broken down by domain (strand), with one to four clusters of content for each domain. In K-8, each grade has about 10 clusters in all. At the standards website these clusters are described with paragraphs. My MathPaths website shows lists of lesson goals or objectives based on CCSS cluster descriptions.

Here is a basic approach for evaluating lessons.

1. Look at the lesson title and identify the domain. On my website, domains are color coded to help you see related content across grades.
2. For that domain at your grade level, look for the lesson title and/or content in the cluster descriptions and goals. (The goals that I have written are often similar to common lesson objectives.)
3. If you see a close match, you should use the lesson. If not, you might be able to skip the lesson!
4. Look at the related content at the prior grade and the next grade. If the content is required for two successive grades, pay close attention to the difference between requirements and decide what adjustments to the lesson may be needed.

Because Common Core requires fewer topics per grade, you may find that you can skip a lot of textbook lessons. This should allow time for extra activities toward the goal of getting all students to master the core content. Advanced students may have time to work independently on previously skipped lessons.