About Renaissance Focus Skills

Focus Skills are—simply put—the building blocks of student learning. Based on extensive research into how learning progresses in reading and mathematics, Focus Skills provide a roadmap for closing learning gaps as you move every student toward greater mastery.

Critical

Focus Skills are fundamental to student understanding, involving concepts that students must master in order to advance to the next step.

Impactful

Because Focus Skills are prerequisites for future learning, focusing instruction on these skills provides the greatest return in terms of student growth.

Standards-based

Focus Skills are identified through a detailed study of your state’s standards of learning—and reflect your state’s grade-level expectations.

Using Renaissance Focus Skills

The videos below will help you get the most out of Renaissance Focus Skills.

For more about the development of Focus Skills, view this page.

Focus Skills Center Tour

Accelerated Learning Primer

Focus Skills by the numbers

The graph below shows the number of Focus Skills or domain groups by grade for the selected subject and state. For more information about a grade’s Focus Skills, hover the mouse over the grade’s bar and then click or tap the bar. You’ll then see a summary of the Focus Skills for the domain you clicked or tapped. To view detailed information about all the Focus Skills for the grade, click the View Details link in the pop-up.

  • Alabama
    AL
  • Alaska
    AK
  • Arizona
    AZ
  • Arkansas
    AR
  • California
    CA
  • Colorado
    CO
  • Connecticut
    CT
  • Delaware
    DE
  • District of Columbia
    DC
  • Florida
    FL
  • Georgia
    GA
  • Hawaii
    HI
  • Idaho
    ID
  • Illinois
    IL
  • Indiana
    IN
  • Iowa
    IA
  • Kansas
    KS
  • Kentucky
    KY
  • Louisiana
    LA
  • Maine
    ME
  • Maryland
    MD
  • Massachusetts
    MA
  • Michigan
    MI
  • Minnesota
    MN
  • Mississippi
    MS
  • Missouri
    MO
  • Montana
    MT
  • Nebraska
    NE
  • Nevada
    NV
  • New Hampshire
    NH
  • New Jersey
    NJ
  • New Mexico
    NM
  • New York
    NY
  • North Carolina
    NC
  • North Dakota
    ND
  • Ohio
    OH
  • Oklahoma
    OK
  • Oregon
    OR
  • Pennsylvania
    PA
  • Rhode Island
    RI
  • South Carolina
    SC
  • South Dakota
    SD
  • Tennessee
    TN
  • Texas
    TX
  • Utah
    UT
  • Vermont
    VT
  • Virginia
    VA
  • Washington
    WA
  • West Virginia
    WV
  • Wisconsin
    WI
  • Wyoming
    WY
Domains

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Domain Details
State Grade
Group: Domain
0 Focus Skills

    Focus Skills are also available for Spanish reading for Pre-K to grade 12.

    Find the Focus Skills for your state

    Click your state—or use the dropdown menu—to access full lists of Focus Skills.

    • Alabama
      AL
    • Alaska
      AK
    • Arizona
      AZ
    • Arkansas
      AR
    • California
      CA
    • Colorado
      CO
    • Connecticut
      CT
    • Delaware
      DE
    • District of Columbia
      DC
    • Florida
      FL
    • Georgia
      GA
    • Hawaii
      HI
    • Idaho
      ID
    • Illinois
      IL
    • Indiana
      IN
    • Iowa
      IA
    • Kansas
      KS
    • Kentucky
      KY
    • Louisiana
      LA
    • Maine
      ME
    • Maryland
      MD
    • Massachusetts
      MA
    • Michigan
      MI
    • Minnesota
      MN
    • Mississippi
      MS
    • Missouri
      MO
    • Montana
      MT
    • Nebraska
      NE
    • Nevada
      NV
    • New Hampshire
      NH
    • New Jersey
      NJ
    • New Mexico
      NM
    • New York
      NY
    • North Carolina
      NC
    • North Dakota
      ND
    • Ohio
      OH
    • Oklahoma
      OK
    • Oregon
      OR
    • Pennsylvania
      PA
    • Rhode Island
      RI
    • South Carolina
      SC
    • South Dakota
      SD
    • Tennessee
      TN
    • Texas
      TX
    • Utah
      UT
    • Vermont
      VT
    • Virginia
      VA
    • Washington
      WA
    • West Virginia
      WV
    • Wisconsin
      WI
    • Wyoming
      WY
    Focus Skills
    Wisconsin

    Trip Steps for Reading and Math

    If learning is a staircase, then all steps are not created equal. In both reading and math, some skills are extraordinarily difficult for students to master. We call these skills Trip Steps because they can cause a stumble in learning. See lists of Trip Steps, which span kindergarten through high school.

    Trip Steps visualization

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