Prepare for Common
Core Assessments
with Core Clicks
Core Clicks provides the high-quality nonfiction and performance tasks that students will encounter on PARCC, Smarter Balanced, and other Common Core assessments.
Developed by the team of Common Core experts at Scholastic News and Weekly Reader, Core Clicks is a digital nonfiction reading program that combines compelling informational texts with dynamic interactive features to keep students engaged while they prepare for tests.
Multiple Encounters with Short, Meaningful Texts:
Perfect Practice for the Common Core
Core Clicks is composed of 108 Text Studies that guide educators and students through THREE READS of concise informational texts about the length that they’ll encounter on upcoming assessments.
Each text features embedded performance tasks that challenge students to analyze the text as they would on a test. Performance tasks include text-marking activities, evidence-based questions, and drag-and-drop exercises modeled on the PARCC assessment.
- Identify Author’s Purpose
- Determine Cause and Effect
- Reason and Use Evidence
- Cite Textual Evidence
- Integrate information conveyed visually (e.g., graphs, maps, charts)
- Compare and Contrast Texts
- Discern Word Meaning Using Context Clues
- Find the Main Idea and Key Details
- Make Inferences
- Determine Point of View
- Understand Problem and Solution
- Sequence
- Use Text Features
Text Studies take students through three reads of a compelling text with a different learning objective for each encounter.
- Watch a pre-reading video
- Determine word meaning with contextual
vocabulary pop-ups - Listen to an optional audio read-aloud for
additional support
- Identify specific text features with text-marking
exercises - Answer close reading questions
- Drag and drop icons onto the text to locate
instances of textual evidence
- Talk about it with discussion prompts
throughout the text - Converse in small groups or as a class
Review and Reinforcement
Each compelling text study is followed by a skill workout and light assessment. Based on the text just read, these exercises model the types of questions students will be asked on Common Core assessments.
- Videos for direct instruction
- Additional text-based activity
- Printable activity sheet
- Light assessment
- Multiple choice modeled on PARCC
and Smarter Balanced
Reading checkpoints have students read a new and unfamiliar text independently. They will then have to apply the skills they learned in the text studies. Reading checkpoints reproduce the experience of test taking. There are six Reading Checkpoints per grade level 3–5, and three per grade level for K–2. Teachers can easily assign checkpoints to individual students and track progress.
To help educators provide adequate practice for Common Core assessments, Core Clicks allows teachers to assign components of Core Clicks to individual students. Students simply log in to complete and submit assignments.
There are also features that can be tracked, including question quest and reading checkpoints, to help educators assess their students’ progress.
- 108 Complete Text Studies (18 per grade)
- 20 Skills Videos
- 27 Reading Checkpoints
- Tracking and Reporting Tools
- Implementation Guide and Lesson Plans