News Brief
Why I Support the Common Core Reading Standards
The Atlantic (04/24/13) Prior, Karen SwallowAfter attending a two-day conference with David Coleman, president of the College Board and chief architect of the Common Core State Standards, Liberty University English professor Karen Prior was no longer skeptical of the standards' potential to boost literacy and improve reading skills among U.S. grade-school students. "The Common Core's 'deep reading' approach to literacy and language arts is desperately needed, and will give students like the one I talked to at the symposium the tools to be prepared for college, career, and life -- tools they currently lack. I know because I see these unprepared students in my college classroom," Prior says. Over the past decade or so, she has watched students grow increasingly disconnected from the process of reading a text and making connections between themselves and that text, or the world at large. "The language arts and literacy standards of the Common Core emphasize careful reading -- the close reading of texts to ensure comprehension," a skill most of her students lack upon entering college, she writes. She concludes that the Common Core standards in reading are intended to empower students to read and read well, "the very foundation of success for college, career, and life."
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