ABSTRACT
First graders are marathon runners. Children spend approximately six years training and preparing for their first learning marathon: The intense, demanding, and achievement-filled experience commonly known as "first grade". Attending to and learning from the process of solving a problem is an important element of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The standards have a strong, consistent focus on children developing and using mental strategies, explaining how an answer was calculated and why it worked, or learning how a classmate figured out what the main character of the story was thinking. The text for the Grade 1 standards for mathematical content and for English Language Arts is quoted verbatim from the CCSS-M and CCSS-ELA Standards documents. The annotations to the standards provided in each content area are author's efforts to help get people started on unpacking the standards. The ideas and observations she presents are nothing more than one person's interpretation of the knowledge and skills included in the standards.
