Essential, easy-to-implement tools for teachers to help improve literacy across the content areas, as mandated by the CCSS

Thinkquiry Toolkit 1, Second Edition, is a collection of teacher instructional practices, student learning strategies, and collaborative routines that improves reading comprehension and vocabulary learning in grades 4 through 12. Each practice, strategy, or routine is research-based, high impact, multi-purpose and effective in improving student learning across multiple content areas. It addresses the importance of the ability to read, write, speak, listen, and think well enough to learn whatever one wants to learn, to demonstrate that learning, and to transfer that learning to new situations. Thinkquiry Toolkit 1 iscomprised of five sections:

1. Overview of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy and the related instructional shifts


2. Selecting the Right Tools for Maximum Learning


3. Laying the Foundation Before Reading/Learning


4. Building New Knowledge During Reading/Learning, and


5. Expanding and Deepening Understanding After Reading/Learning

If teachers collaboratively use these practices, strategies, and routines; teach them to students; and use them regularly across content areas, students will develop confidence and competence as readers, writers, and learners.

A division of Public Consulting Group (PCG), PCG Education provides instructional and management services and technologies to schools, school districts, and state education agencies across the U.S. and internationally. They apply more than 30 years of management consulting expertise and extensive real-world experience as teachers and leaders to strengthen clients' instructional practice and organizational leadership, enabling student success.