The Pennsylvania Core Standards establish a minimum level of competency for all students. Learners build a staircase of skills and concepts through engagement and interaction with increasingly complex texts with proficiency, efficiency and independence as a reader, writer, speaker, and listener. The English Language Arts standards emphasize the use of informational and literary texts with a focus on domain specific vocabulary.

Learners ground their inferencing, analyses, and representations of thinking on textual evidence from one to multiple sources. In the learning continuum, skills build to bring learners to independence as critical thinkers, writers, and users of technology in the 21st century - thus, the pathway to college and career readiness.