Common Core Standards

The Common Core Standards were developed to prepare students for the demands of college and careers. The Common Core Standards provide a clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. Forty-five states have adopted the Common Core Standards. The Common Core Standards are for students in kindergarten through twelfth-grade. Some states are implementing these standards in the 2013-14 school year. Others will wait until the 2014-15 school year. English language arts and math were the subjects chosen for the Common Core Standards because they are as upon which students build skill sets which are used in other subjects.

Students will continue to read a diverse array of classic and contemporary literature as well as informational text in a wide range of subjects. In the past, literature has often been more dominant in schools especially in the primary grades. Now, an emphasis for more informational text especially in the primary grades will be emphasized to establish this “staircase” of increasing complexity in what students must be able to read.Fisher Hill’s six book series English Reading Comprehension for the Spanish Speaker contains many examples of informational text for students to read and enjoy. Following is an example of informational text from the fourth book in the series.

The Amazon River

Did you know that dolphins live in the Amazon River? The Amazon River also has the largest watershed in the world and the most tributaries. The Amazon and its tributaries wind through the northern half of South America flowing through the countries of Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean 6,437 kilometers (4,000 miles) from the its headwaters high in the Andes mountains of Peru. This huge watershed includes the largest tropical rainforest in the world as well as areas of dry grassland.Many animals live in the Amazon. The Boto dolphins live in the Amazon. These dolphins are vulnerable because of the continued destruction of the rainforest environment. The major threats to their survival are pollution, deforestation, entanglement in fishing nets and competition for fish with human fishers. The carnivorous piranhas (fish) also live in the Amazon. They swim in large shoals or schools and may attack livestock and humans. In 1981 300 people were killed by a school of piranhas when their boat capsized. With their sharp teeth, piranhas can strip the flesh from bones in just a few minutes. But only a few species of piranhas attack humans, and many are solely fish-eaters, and do not swim in packs or schools. The Anaconda is the largest snake in the world and is found in shallow waters in the Amazon basin. It spends much of its time in the water with just its nostrils above the surface. Thousands of species of fish, crabs and turtles also live in the Amazon River.

The Amazon is home to a variety of Indian cultures that have a great deal of knowledge about the Amazon rainforest. As settlements bring changes to the forest, these cultural groups are also changing, and the lessons they have gained through thousands of years of living within the rainforest are in danger of being lost. Scientists are trying to learn from the native people of the Amazon about the rainforest plants and animals that may hold cures to many diseases.

Amazon River with its huge watershed includes the largest tropical rainforest in the world. The destruction of the forest as settlers clear the land for farming and companies harvest trees for lumber is believed to be contributing to the problem of global warming. It’s important to preserve the Amazon River and its huge watershed that includes the largest rainforest in the world!

The six book series English Reading Comprehension for the Spanish Speaker contains many examples of informational text for students to read and enjoy. Fisher Hill workbooks are bilingual to help facilitate and accelerate Spanish speakers in their development of English reading and writing. Fisher Hill workbooks are written for Spanish-speaking teens and adults.

Visit our website at www.Fisher-Hill.com to see all of our workbooks for Spanish-speaking teens and adults.

Adult Literacy

According to the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, more than 90 million adults over the age of 16 in the United States (more than 40%) have low literacy skills. According to ProLiteracy (2013), 14% of the adults over the age of 16 read at or below a fifth-grade level, with only 29% reading at the eight-grade level. Seventy-five percent of state prison inmates and 59% of federal prison inmates have not graduated from high school or can be described as having low literacy skills. Twenty percent of adults have literacy skills that are considered inadequate for the workplace (Comings, Reder, &I Sum, 2001).

 Learning to read or improving your reading skills can be a very daunting task, especially if it is not in your native language. Fisher Hill workbooks for Spanish-speaking teens and adults are an excellent resource for people who self-study (work on their own to improve their literacy skills) or attend a literacy course. Our workbooks use large print, do not progress too rapidly and include an answer key. Spanish-speaking teens and adults who have literacy skills in their native language will very much enjoy using the the four book series called English for the Spanish Speaker.

Many immigrants or migrants in the United States may have had little prior schooling in their home country and may only be able to read a few words in their native language. Our four workbook series: English Reading and Spelling for the Spanish Speaker, English Reading Comprehension for the Spanish Speaker, English Writing Composition for the Spanish Speaker, and English Vocabulary for the Spanish Speaker were written to help Spanish speakers develop reading and writing skills in English. The English Reading and Spelling for the Spanish Speaker workbook series helps students understand the alphabetic principle of reading and spelling. Many stories in the English Reading Comprehension for the Spanish Speaker series are non-fiction to help students increase their knowledge base in the area of science and social science.

Fisher Hill workbooks are bilingual to help facilitate and accelerate Spanish speakers in their development of English reading and writing. Visit our website at www.Fisher-Hill.com to see all of our workbooks for Spanish-speaking teens and adults.

Inspirational People

This summer I had the opportunity to hike in Norway.  For the past two summers, I have hiked with a group called Holidays.  It is a hiking group from England.  This summer there were four people in their early eighties in the group.  They were excellent hikers walking six to ten miles a day over terrain that was boggy and steep!  Watching them hike was inspirational.  Listening to them talk was inspirational.  In my series English Reading Comprehension for the Spanish Speaker, there are many stories about inspirational people:  Nelson Mandela, Andrew Lloyd Weber, Steven Spielberg, Albert Einstein, Dolly Parton, Smokey Robinson, Maya Angelou, Chris Gardner, Bono, Archie Carr, Bill and Melinda Gates, Amelia Earhart, Oprah Winfrey.  Below is the story about Paul Farmer.

Paul Farmer

If you had to write about a hero, who would you write about?  Some people would write about

Paul Farmer.  Have you ever heard of him?

Paul Farmer was born on October 26, 1959 and had a very unconventional childhood.  He didn’t live in a house.  No, he got to live in a bus at a campground and after that he lived on a 50 foot-long leaky boat with his family of eight.  Farmer thrived in these unusual circumstances.  He was a tall, skinny kid who excelled in the intellectual department.  His father, who was a physically big man and competitive athlete, was disappointed that his son was not athletic.  Instead, Farmer loved going to the public library and getting books.  At the age of 11, Farmer was given a copy of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings which he read and then reread in a matter of a few days.  After that, he took it to the library and told the librarian he wanted more books like this.  She gave him adventure and fantasy novels but after reading them he would return and say “This isn’t it.”  Finally one day the librarian gave him War and Peace.  Bingo!  This was the book he had been looking for.  He told the librarian,  “This is it!  This is just like Lord of the Rings.”  When it was time to go to college, Farmer received a full scholarship to Duke University.

Farmer’s childhood, which was full of family adventures and misadventures, prepared him for a life of traveling and doctoring in difficult places.  Growing up with dinners of hot dogs, bean soup and cramped quarters, he developed the ability to concentrate and sleep anywhere and eat most anything.  One summer in Haiti he slept every night in a dentist’s chair.

The seeds for his lifework were planted when he was an undergraduate at Duke University.  He volunteered at Duke’s hospital and in local migrant labor camps where Haitians worked in the tobacco and vegetable fields.  After graduation, Farmer enrolled in Harvard Medical School and went to Haiti to study and volunteer in one of the poorest regions.  He studied medicine at Harvard long distance and applied what he learned to his Haitian patients.  To support his work, in 1987, with another Harvard medical student, he founded a Boston-based charity called Partners in Health.  PIH set up a clinic which today is a well-equipped facility and a global model for delivering public-health services.  PIH fights tuberculosis, AIDs, malaria, and other infectious diseases afflicting millions of poor in Haiti, Peru, Russia, Mexico, Guatemala, Rwanda, and Boston’s inner city.  Countless volunteers do much of the work.

Paul Farmer is a hero who has dedicated his life and talents to fight against global pandemics of disease and poverty.

Visit our website at www.Fisher-Hill.com to see the English Reading Comprehension the the Spanish Speaker series and other series for Spanish-speaking teens and adults.