Pathways to the Common Core

Pathways to the Common Core by Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman brings clarity for "decoding" the Common Core State Standards.   I love how positive they are and encouraging about the CCSS.  They admit this document is overwhelming.  They may not agree with everything in the document and they let you know that a few times but they keep encouraging the reader to find the positive.  We can't walk away from the CCSS.  I found this book encouraging for embracing the CCSS and helpful.  This book explains the language of the CCSS and the thinking behind the language.  We hope our students understand what they our learning, we need to understand what we are expected to teach.  Several times we are encouraged to continue best practice and keep doing workshop models to help students grow further. Several times we are given examples for increasing the thinking and work we have our students do.  The message is clearly stated the CCSS is the what and teachers can decide the how.  I love this.  There is a lot of information in this book and I frequently found my thinking being stretched and clarity coming forward.  Reading this book once, isn't going to be enough.  I will be revisiting this book.  The book is filled with so much thinking, I wasn't sure what or how much to share with you without writing quite the lengthy post.  So instead, I hope this post will nudge you to look at this book to help you with your own journey of understanding the CCSS.  I know it has helped me and will continue to be a resource I turn to.