Reading Plus State Standards Alignment: Exemplars

1A: Recalling Explicit Details

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: K-4

Excerpt: As the pilot's words filled me with hope, I perused the steep chutes and precarious descents for signs of my brother. But, honestly, I suspected the worst. I knew avalanches most often kill by suffocation. There is air even in dense avalanche debris, but it is unattainable if the victim's mouth and nose are plugged with snow. Even if the victim can draw a breath, his exhalations will begin to make any available air less accessible by coating the snow surface around his mouth with ice.

Question: Choose the sentence in this excerpt that gives the most likely explanation for why people suffocate in an avalanche.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Create a new graphic organizer that indicates a selection's main idea, characters, and supporting details, and how these three areas intersect.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

1B: Analyzing Implicit Details

SeeReader
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Selection: K-6

Excerpt: Quitting her job to become his full-time caregiver, Mrs. Hayward erected a shrine to Sam in the living room, decorating the fireplace mantel and nearby shelves with his football and soccer trophies.

She tirelessly prepared his favorite meals, but nothing could alleviate Sam's dark moods as the family almost drained its finances to bring in physical therapists to rehabilitate Sam. Because he had lost all hope, his improvement was slow.

Question: Why did Sam's mom display his trophies in the living room?

to demonstrate he had the ability to show determination and courage
to remind him that he can rejoin his teams when he gets better
to show visitors that he had been a star athlete before his injury
to motivate him to do the same vigorous exercises he once did

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Describe how you arrived at conclusions about a selection's main idea and characters if information about these text elements was not directly stated.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

2A: Determining Main Idea

SeeReader
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Selection: K-11

Excerpt: No excerpt is available for this question.

Question: What is the main idea of this selection?

People with Tourette Syndrome need understanding and acceptance from friends, relatives, and the general public.
Tourette Syndrome is a neurological disorder for which there are some medical treatments but no known cure.
Children suffering from Tourette Syndrome should have a place to go to sympathize with one another.
People with Tourette Syndrome can learn to control their repetitive movements and sounds.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: (Theme: relationships) Describe a character who struggled with society or family and how/if that struggle was resolved.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

2B: Analyzing Relative Importance

SeeReader
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Selection: K-4

Excerpt: Still, with all his daredevil ways, I never believed he'd risk his life in unchartered territory. As I said, he was a creature of habit and had his favorite sanctuaries. But after the initial investigation and then the exhaustive rescue operations, and still no trace of my brother, I knew the rescue team was searching in vain. Evidently, Jake had decided to test his endurance and cruise the adjacent Maroon Bowl.

Question: What was the most important clue leading to Jake's rescue?

the deduction of his sister that he took the challenge of the Maroon Bowl
the Gortex jacket with the tracking reflector left behind in the locker
the signal from Jake's cell phone before the battery went dead.
the ski pass scanned Friday at 12:04 p. m. at the base of the Highlands

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Imagine you are an attorney cross-examining the characters in a selection. What questions would you ask them to elicit the most important details about the plot?

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

1A: Recalling Explicit Details

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: K-2

Excerpt: Another distinctive anatomical feature is the horseshoe crab's ten eyes. Two are located on the underside of the crab and the rest on the shell. The tail also has an anatomical feature called photoreceptors, which are sensitive to light and dark. Even with all of this anatomical equipment, however, the horseshoe crab's vision is not very good. Yet another anatomical oddity is the crab's blood, which is blue due to its copper content. By comparison, human blood is red, because of its iron content.

Question: What are two distinctive features of the horseshoe crab's anatomy?

Its tail is sensitive to light and dark.
It has ten eyes, located on both sides of the shell.
It uses its legs like flippers to swim.
It can see its prey from a long distance away.
Its mouth has a wide jaw and strong teeth.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Create a website for a non-fiction selection you read. Include the main idea and supporting details. Include images that would help viewers of your website better understand the topic.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

2A: Determining Main Idea

SeeReader
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Selection: K-5

Excerpt: No excerpt is available for this question.

Question: What is the main idea of this selection?

Although they are a minority, left-handed people can thrive and become successful.
Left-handed people experience many inconveniences because the world is geared toward right-handed people.
The myths and superstitions about left-handed people are unsupported by evidence.
It is essential that parents and teachers help children accept their left-handedness from an early age.

Writing
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Writing prompt: Is it necessary for every selection to have a main idea? Develop an argument and use evidence from selections you have read to provide supporting evidence.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

2B: Analyzing Relative Importance

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: K-25

Excerpt: When the injury is a concussion, the pressures are particularly intense. A cast, a sling, or a limp make the nature of an injury clear. The effects of concussions are not as readily apparent. While a lack of mental acuity or dizziness may be a problem, physically the player may appear to perfectly healthy. Teammates playing with torn tendons, ripped cartilage, severely bruised muscles, or hairline fractures may look askance at another player who is sitting out practices or games with no apparent injury.

Question: What is the main reason some coaches overlook the need to pull players who incur a blow to the head from competition?

The players usually have no visible signs of injury.
Parents don't like to see their kids sit on the bench.
Other team members are relying on the players to win.
The injured players insist on returning to action on the field.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: When reading for information, why is it important to concentrate on the most important facts? Give an example from your social studies or science textbook of how you would do this.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

2C: Summarizing

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: K-8

Excerpt: The implications of this study are very important. Besides being essential for brain and body health, eating fat is also important for promoting feelings of happiness. Doctors now believe the connection between eating fats and being happy may account for the reason why many people on low-fat diets experience depression.

Question: Why are the implications of the Belgian study important?

The scientists found that fat is vital for a healthy brain and body as well as for a cheerful temperament.
The scientists discovered that eating fatty junk foods can lead to heart problems and other ailments.
Researchers realized that most people consume too much fat in their daily meals.
Researchers determined that people on low-fat diets tend to be happier and healthier.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Create a news report based on a selection you have read. Report facts from the selection as well as additional facts you researched from reputable sources.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

3B: Analyzing Plot/Character

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: K-14

Excerpt: Assizes were made up of 12 local "free and lawful men" who, under oath, made decisions based on their personal knowledge of the true property owner or heir. They dealt with civil, not criminal, cases and were different from modern civil juries in that the jurors were "self-informing." This means that panel members used their pre-existing knowledge as a basis for their decisions.

Question: Based on this excerpt, assize jurors were different from jurors in civil trials today because they

already knew the details of the case.
heard cases involving property issues.
were composed of 12 lawful men and women.
based their decisions only on evidence presented during trial.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Describe a character with whom you empathize, and explain why you feel this way.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

3C: Analyzing Cause/Effect

SeeReader
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Selection: K-12

Excerpt: While working at Hewlett-Packard as a summer intern, Jobs met another electronics geek, Steve Wozniak, who would become his future business partner and co-founder of Apple. Jobs briefly attended Reed College, but he dropped out after one semester because he was concerned that college expenditures were eating up his parents' savings. He continued auditing classes at Reed while crashing with friends.

Question: Jobs dropped out of college because

he was concerned about straining his family's finances.
he did not have the patience to attend classes.
he got a job as an intern at Hewlett-Packard.
he was too busy running his own company.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Using your science book, give three examples of each of the following: single cause--single effect, single cause--multiple effects, multiple causes--single effect.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

6B: Recognizing Persuasion

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Selection: K-10

Excerpt: Those espousing this calendar base their arguments principally on perceived disadvantages of the traditional calendar. They emphasize that students forget much of what they have learned when they are away from school for lengthy summer breaks. Additionally, they assert that children get bored after the first few weeks away from class, so a long stretch of vacation can be counterproductive. Conversely, they indicate that too many consecutive weeks of instruction without a break can diminish motivation and cause burnout for both teachers and students.

Question: What are the two main arguments for advocates of the "balanced calendar"?

Students forget much of what they have learned over a long summer break.
Too many weeks of instruction without a break can diminish motivation and cause students to "burn out."
Older students will be able to more easily find jobs so they can save for college.
The cost of operating the schools would be less, thus saving taxpayers money.
A balanced calendar would allow more students to take part in extracurricular activities.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Imagine you want to make a documentary about a non-fiction selection you read. Describe the steps you would need to take to make your documentary as accurate and unbiased as possible.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

E1.4.G

Exemplars

1A: Recalling Explicit Details

1A: Recalling Explicit Details

SeeReader ✓ standard met

K-4

Writing ✓ standard met

Evaluator

1B: Analyzing Implicit Details

1B: Analyzing Implicit Details

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K-6

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Evaluator

2A: Determining Main Idea

2A: Determining Main Idea

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K-11

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Evaluator

2B: Analyzing Relative Importance

2B: Analyzing Relative Importance

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K-4

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Evaluator

1A: Recalling Explicit Details

1A: Recalling Explicit Details

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K-2

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2A: Determining Main Idea

2A: Determining Main Idea

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K-5

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2B: Analyzing Relative Importance

2B: Analyzing Relative Importance

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K-25

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Evaluator

2C: Summarizing

2C: Summarizing

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K-8

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3B: Analyzing Plot/Character

3B: Analyzing Plot/Character

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K-14

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3C: Analyzing Cause/Effect

3C: Analyzing Cause/Effect

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K-12

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Evaluator

6B: Recognizing Persuasion

6B: Recognizing Persuasion

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K-10

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