Selecting materials to remediate students’ learning gaps can be a daunting task. If you have access to multiple materials, and you are feeling overwhelmed by the choices, here are five tips to help you identify which of your current materials to use and how to use them effectively to address your students’ learning gaps.
(1) Use available assessment data to identify your students’ learning gaps.
(2) Identify the state standards/expectations associated with those learning gaps.
(3) Identify the materials you have available. Then, use the publisher’s correlations for each material to identify which material(s) address(es) those specific standards/expectations.
(4) Select one or more of those materials and check citations (i.e., lessons, activities, quizzes, etc…) in the publisher’s correlation for alignment to the content, context, and cognitive rigor of each of those standards/expectations.
- Suppose that you used one of the materials to teach those standards/expectations originally. In that case, you can use that same material to remediate learning gaps as long as you select different citations in that material to re-teach those standards/expectations.
- These two free whitepapers provide useful guidance on checking the alignment of citations to any state standards: Navigating to Successful Student Outcomes with Standards-Aligned Instruction and Overcoming Challenges to Standards Alignment.
(5) Use the aligned citations in the material(s) you have selected to reteach the content and/or skills your students did not learn the first time.
- The citations you select must be aligned to the standards/expectations your students are struggling with to ensure that the material will help close students’ learning gaps.
If your district subscribes to Learning List, use our alignment comparison tool to compare the alignment of your current materials. This makes it easy to identify which of your materials are aligned to the standards your students are struggling with. Then, download the alignment reports and use aligned citations in any of your materials to reteach those standards.
If you need new materials to address learning loss, The Learning List is a free directory of more than 15,000 K-12 materials organized by grade level and subject that can save you hours of work.
About Learning List
Learning List provides curriculum support services for schools and districts. Our hallmark service is our low-cost subscription instructional materials review service which provides access to alignment, quality, and technology compatibility reviews of thousands of widely used K-12 instructional materials. Contact info@LearningList.com to learn more about the services we provide.