New Mexico Language Arts Instructional Scope 2.0

K-12 standards for language arts and mathematics define what students should understand and be able to do by the end of each grade. Students should demonstrate their proficiency of these standards both orally and through writing. For students to be college- and career-ready, they must be able to read from a wide range of high-quality, increasingly challenging literary and informational texts. One of the key requirements of the standards for reading is that all students must be able to comprehend texts of steadily increasing complexity as they progress through school.

How to use the Instructional Scope for Language Arts:

Support your lesson planning
Guide teams to discuss, plan, model, and reflect on your practice
Scaffold your deliberate planning and your focused conversations with your colleagues during professional learning community discussions, supporting your use of high-quality instruction that meets the needs of all learners
Consider how to address learning needs and where targeted scaffolds may be needed to assist students in accessing grade level core instruction
Use side by side with high-quality instructional materials
Provides teaching support that contributes to equitable classroom structures and assists lesson planning
Assists in designing classroom learning environments that minimize barriers and optimize learning for all students
Monitor students’ progress on grade-appropriate assignments

What is included in the NM Instructional Scope for Language Arts:

instructional tenets
planning guidance
resources
culturally and linguistically responsive instruction
assessment
cross-curricular connections
acceleration guidance

Unpacking the Standards

What is in the unpacking of the standards?

ELA standards have been broken down to give clarity around what the standard means as well as clarity around student performance. There are also instructionally embedded formative assessments offered that align with clusters of literature and informational text standards. These formative assessments naturally allow for speaking, listening, and/or writing standards to be incorporated naturally as student performance is assessed. Due to the systematic and specific nature of foundational skills, instructionally embedded formative assessments should be pulled from the high-quality instructional materials used for daily lessons.

You are encouraged to read the NM Instructional Scope in its entirety. You will then find each section of the scope broken down into separate PDFs.

Should you need assistance, please contact the Literacy and Humanities Bureau staff.