001This is an asynchronous recording of the March 2025 stakeholder engagement sessions on K through5 crosscurricular connections for social studies and reading language arts. This presentation held originally on March 5th and 6, 2025 was a joint effort of the RLA and social studies teams from the TEA division of curriculum standards and student support. The members of the team led by Jim Doris are Jenny Gayona, Tamara Robert, Jim Andahar, and me Tim Bryant. The agenda for this presentation began with an overview of the protocols and goals of stakeholder engagement sessions. The main focus of the presentation was to share the purpose of the K through5 crosscurricular connections tool for social studies and English language arts and reading. We shared research regarding literacy and discuss the tools implic implications for instruction. Next, I gave a preview of the
002draft version of the tool. During the live event, we used breakout rooms to hear feedback from participants and answer questions. If you have questions, you may contact us to the email addresses included in the presentation or later on the link to the help desk will be given for use in submitting questions. At the end of the live presentation, we collected feedback. We began with an overview of stakeholder sessions in general. We hold these sessions because TEA is committed to enhancing opportunities for stakeholder engagement. In these sessions, we share information related to social studies and re reading language arts, provide opportunities for general questions, facilitate discussions, collect feedback from stakeholders in order to build relationships with stakeholders such as yourself. Jenna Gona will now share information on the purpose for and the research behind the K
003through5 crosscurricular connections tool for social studies and English language arts and reading. Hello, I'm Jenny Gallin and I'm a social studies content specialist in the curriculum division and I'm going to be talking you through the purpose of the K5 crosscurricular connections tool. Our goal when providing this resource to educators was to provide support in grounding social studies knowledge building with English language arts and reading comprehension skills. Now the term knowledge building is used a lot at the agency right now and whenever we discuss the term knowledge building we are talking about contentrich instructional materials focused on student expectations. So the purpose of this K5 crosscurricular connections tool since it is focused on social studies and reading language arts connections when we use the term knowledge building that will be specific to social studies content. Also
004throughout these slides in this presentation we are going to uh re-emphasize best practices and what should be done in classroom. So we included the quote below. I'm sure many of you educators already know this to be best practice and that when you provide opportunities for students to engage and process through what they're reading in multiple ways. So that is discussion writing assignments and you also allow them to read content um text from various content areas that you're going to improve your students reading comprehension. So, it's one of those things that we know this is best practice. Now, how can we do this efficiently and effectively in the classroom? Last year, TEA Commissioner Mike Morath visited each ESC across the state of Texas and did a literacy road show. I was lucky to attend this road
005show when it came to Levik, Texas. And the following slides are going to be directly from the commissioner's presentation. So I as a social studies content specialist was very excited to see the quote from the research in the blue bubble which stated that social studies is the only subject with a clear positive and statistically significant effect on reading improvement. So, this was exciting, not only to reinforce a content area that I deeply care about, but also just as a starting point that social studies can have benefits for students in reading language arts, but also as a social studies teacher, I also know that when I use reading language arts skills in my classroom, they have a better retention of my social studies content. So the whole goal is to focus on how we can better
006serve our students. And so this research focuses on how these content areas can help support each other. The research on this slide shows a random control trial of high quality instructional materials for the reading language arts classroom that were focused on knowledge building used in schools in Colorado had significant positive effects on their students. So, not only did it positively impact all students who were participating in this knowledgerrich curriculum in the reading language arts classroom, but to me more importantly, it eliminated gaps between low-income students and their peers. So, this is huge. I know teachers, this is something that we all strive to do. So what we can see from this research is that when we focus on knowledgebuilding contentrich instructional materials, pair that with reading language arts skills that we are going to help
007students especially students who are lowincome to eliminate gaps. Our next piece of research that we are sharing is best practices for all classrooms. I think we can all agree that when you have students read a text in order to support comprehension of that reading, the more you have them write about what they read, the more you have them talk about what they read, that is not only going to enhance their reading comprehension, their text comprehension, but also their retention. So, we are also going to share this information with you because we know it to be best practices. Since we can all agree that having students write about what they read increases their comprehension of that text, this research piggybacks off of that and shows there are times when educators are implementing best practices that we
008know to be true inequitably with our students. So I want to draw your attention to the pie charts on the bottom right hand of the screen. So the one on the left is specific to students who are below grade level and the one on the right is specific to students who were above grade level. We're going to start by honing in on the lime green sections of those piraphs. So teachers were asked that when you give writing assignments last school year, were you more likely to and the lime green color are teachers who chose assign a text and ask students questions that required them to write about what they had read. So we all can agree that this would boost text comprehension. What the pie chart shows us is that if their students were below
009grade level, they only asked them to write about what they had read 22% of the time versus students who were above grade level asking them to write about what they had read 60% of the time. So, as we are analyzing text comprehension, we also need to self-reflect on what we are doing in the classroom as for kids and if it's for the benefit of all students. I know teachers care about all of their kids, but that doesn't mean that sometimes we don't make choices that are not to the benefit of all our students. Because we care about them, we want them to be successful. Sometimes we will make instructional decisions that are not best for all of our students. So, as you can see in the teal color, teachers were asked when giving writing assignments
010last school year, were you most likely to? The teal indicates responses where they said they provided students with a writing prompt or question designed to spark their interest and creativity based on their own knowledge and experience. Now, those assignments are great, but if we know that when you ask students to read a text, if writing about specifically what they've read in that text is going to help them with their comprehension, we should probably be doing that more consistently and equitably across our students in our classrooms. We have focused a lot on the previous slides about how using knowledgebuilding text can improve text comprehension and literacy. What we want to make sure that we're very clear about is that it is not the onus of social studies teachers to address all the reading language arts skills
011or the reading language arts teachers to address all the social studies skills. We want to be very clear that both of those content areas can be done simult simultaneously and for the benefit of students. So this piece of research focuses on that when students write about what they have read their retention is increased. This is really important for content areas like social studies. So, I know as a social studies teacher, if I wanted to increase what my students remember about a specific student expectation or content in general, I best practice would be for me to include a writing assignment in order for them to do that. What better way to do that than to look at the reading language arts student expectations, pair that with my social studies content. So, I'm doing what's best for
012kids for both content areas. Now that I have gone over the purpose and the research behind the creation of the tool, I'm going to pass it off to Tamara Robert, who is a reading language arts content specialist in the curriculum division, and she will be going over the description and the recommended use of the K5 crosscurricular connections tool for social studies and English language arts and reading. We will now share a description of the K to5 crosscurricular connections tool. The TEA social studies and English language arts cross-curricular connections tool identifies connections between the social studies and reading language arts tiS that can be leveraged to support learning in both subjects. The resource includes all KTO 5 social studies TEICSS and a list of English language arts TEICSS connections. To provide context behind the creation of
013this document and the research it is grounded in, TA staff have provided an introduction page to be paired with the crosscurricular connections tool. Each grade level of the tool will have an introduction page containing the purpose, description, and suggested use of the tool along with links to the research supporting the tools creation and structure. On this slide, you will see the draft layout of the proposed crosscurricular connections tool. This example is specifically for grade one. You'll notice the first orange arrow which points to the section titled ELAR skills that can be applied across social studies strands. In this section, we decided to put all of the English language arts ti that we believe apply to all social studies expectations so that they could all be found in one location on the tool. You'll notice for
014the second orange arrow in column one we've included the social studies knowledge and skills. In column two we have included the social studies student expectations. And in column three we have included the optional English language arts connections. Based on previous feedback, the list of optional English language arts connections section was divided into two parts. high lever literacy connections and additional literacy connections. Because there may be several English language arts connections for each social studies standard, it may be more helpful for educators to distinguish between those that are considered high leverage and those that are considered additional connections. Our high leverage literacy connections are considered to be the most effective to support student comprehension of the connected social studies standard. We decided to limit these to three to four English language arts connections. Our additional English
015language arts connections that support student comprehension of the connected social studies standards include a greater number of those optional connections for teachers to choose from. Once again, we have the draft layout of the grade 1 proposed crosscurricular connections tool. You'll notice the orange box on the right shows us where those high leverage literacy connections are located. And on this slide of the draft layout of grade 1, the orange box indicates where the additional literacy connections are located. Now, we'll take a look at some sample connections for grade 1. In the first section titled English language arts tiques that can be applied across social studies strands, you'll notice that the orange box highlights an example of one of those connections 1.7C which says use text evidence to support an appropriate response. We believe that this English
016language arts skill can be applied no matter what social studies student expectation is being taught. You notice on the bottom half of the connections tool uh 1.6 6A is highlighted for the social studies student expectation which says describe ways that families meet basic human needs. We believe that one of the high lever connections for this is 1.6E English language arts skill make connections to personal experiences ideas and other text and society with adult assistance. We believe that if students are able to practice making connections to personal experiences, this will support their ability to describe ways that families meet basic human needs. Students essentially would be able to think about their own families and how their met needs are met within their family and to be able to describe ways that either their family or other
017families meet basic human needs. Now, we're going to take a look at sample connections in grade four for English language arts that can be applied across social studies strands. One example of that is 4.7F respond using newly acquired vocabulary as appropriate. We believe that no matter what social studies student expectation is being taught, students are going to continuously be learning new vocabulary terms and the expectation is that students would be able to respond whether verbally or in writing using those newly acquired vocabulary terms. You'll also notice that at the bottom we have social studies student expectation 4.2A 2A which says summarize motivations for European exploration and settlement of Texas including economic opportunity competition and the desire for expansion. We believe that a high lever connection to that for English language arts is 4.6G 6G evaluate
018details read to determine key ideas as students are exposed to different texts regarding uh the motivations for European exploration and settlement etc. An important skill for students to be able to do is to as they're reading the text to evaluate details and to be able to determine what are the key ideas from this text. Now that we've had an opportunity to take a look at examples of the tool, we'd like to share the suggested use. The tool can be used to support cross-curricular instructional planning. As teachers plan instruction, they can enhance student learning by pairing social studies tak student expectations and reading language arts teach student expectations. These cross-curricular connections can support social studies knowledge building and reading language arts skills development simultaneously. It is recommended that teachers carefully select the English language arts skills
019that are best suited to support student knowledge building and literacy acquisition. This may include one or more of the possible English language arts connections. During the live event, we use breakout rooms to conduct a question and discussion period. If you have a question, the next slides will include the mail email addresses for the social studies and RLA team and the link to help to the help desk for division of curriculum and student support. The email addresses of the team can be seen here. You can access the TEA social studies web page with the link in the upper left. Submit a question via link in the middle or subscribe to the newsletter using the link on the right here. The links can be seen for the TEA English language arts and reading web page as well
020as the TEA English language arts and reading web page. The help desk and newsletter subscription links appear here as well. Please visit the instructional materials web page for up-to-date information. Their help desk link is also seen here. You may submit questions to the assessment help desk using the QR code on the screen. Early childhood education resources are available through the QR code seen here. Use the link or QR code here to learn about the Texas Virtual School Network, TXVSN, statewide catalog. TXVSN is a state-led online learning initiative that provides students in Texas schools access to quality online courses and instruction. Thank you for accessing this video of video of the March stakeholder engagement sessions asynchronous recording on the K through5 crosscurricular connections for social studies and reading language arts held March 5th and 6th 2025.