2020 CAS - Reading, Writing, and Communicating Standards Summary of Changes

Reading, Writing, and Communicating Revisions Applicable to All Grades:

• Reduction of the Prepared Graduate Competencies from 22 to 10 while aligning existing Grade Level Expectations.  Redundancies across and between grade levels have been reduced.
• The sections within the Academic Context and Connections changed to Colorado Essential Skills, Essential Questions and Essential Reasoning Skills to create a rich context for literacy learning and its application in other disciplines and authentic situations beyond the classroom.  The alignment of the right-hand side of the document illuminates considerations of essential skills, inquiry, and reasoning practices relevant to specific Prepared Graduate Competencies and Grade Level Expectations.
• Reorganization of writing expectations to ensure consistent, complex, and varied writing experiences across all grade levels.
• Standard 4 is now named Research Inquiry and Design. This revision allows for clearer expectations and student demonstration of research skills throughout grade levels. In addition, the revision reinforces expectations of student application of reasoning skills into relevant context within the reading, writing, speaking and listening, and research standards.
• Clarification through parenthetical statements throughout the document to ensure that stakeholders understand them as possible content considerations, not requirements or limitations.

Revisions for Preschool through 5^th grade:

• Evidence Outcomes for spelling were added to provide a clearer progression of expected skill proficiency.
• (For grades K-3 only) Evidence Outcomes in Standard 1: Oral Expression and Listening and in Standard 2: Reading for all Purposes marked with an asterisk (*) are the minimum skills competencies identified in the READ Act. There is a section titled “Minimum Skills Competencies” on the right-hand side of the standards document with an explanation of the asterisk (*).  

Revisions for 6^th through 8^th grade:                                                        

• There are no revisions to the 6^th through 8^th grade standards beyond mentioned in the above section for all grades.

Revisions for High School (9^th through 12^th grade):

High school standards are banded into grades 9-10 and 11-12 to provide for greater local flexibility and control of curricular choices.