1. Complex Texts:
The Bumpy Road of Reading
Materials available at:
http://professionallearning.typepad.com/bigshantypl/
2. A Bumpy Road?
“Perhaps one of the mistakes in past efforts to improve
reading achievement has been the removal of struggle.
As a profession, we may have made reading tasks too
easy. We do not suggest that we should plan students’
failure but rather that students should be provided with
opportunities to struggle and to learn about themselves
as readers when they struggle, persevere, and eventually
succeed.”
From Text Complexity: Raising Rigor in Reading
Fisher, Frey & Lapp, 2012
3. The Demands of
Complex Texts
• Complex texts require these dispositions:
– A Willingness to Probe
– The Capacity for Uninterrupted Thinking
– A Receptivity to Deep Thinking
* A Habit of Slow Reading
“Too Dumb for Complex Texts?”
By Mark Bauerlein
ASCD Educational Leadership, 2011
4. High above there is the Moon, cold and
quiet, no air, no life, but glowing in the sky.
Here below there are three men who close
themselves in special clothes, who—click—
lock hands in heavy gloves, who—click—
lock heads in large round helmets.
990L
5. Sometime around 1440, the spring-powered clock was
invented. Instead of depending on the pull of weights for
power, this type of clock used a flat metal spring wound
tightly into a coil. The escapement allowed the spring to
unwind by turning one gear tooth at a time. With the use
of a spring, smaller, truly portable clocks could be made.
The first well-known watches, made in Germany around
1510 by Peter Henlein, were so named because guards or
“watchmen” carried small clocks to keep track of how
long to stay at a particular duty post.
1050L
6. Text Complexity and
Common Core
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.10 Read
and comprehend complex literary
and informational texts
independently and proficiently.
8. Measuring Text Complexity:
Matching Reader to Text and Task
Matching Reader to Text and Task
– Reader variables
• Motivation
• Knowledge
• Experience
– Task variables
•
•
•
•
Teacher-led tasks
Peer tasks
Individual tasks
Types of questions
*Determined by teachers using their professional judgment
9. Measuring Text Complexity:
Qualitative
Qualitative Evaluation of Text
– Levels of meaning
• Explicit/Literal vs. Ambiguous/Abstract
• Figurative Language
• Stated, Implied, or Withheld Purpose
– Structure
•
•
•
•
Consistency with genre
Conventional vs. Unique Organization
Narrator
Text Features and Graphics
– Language conventionality and clarity
– Knowledge demands
• Background knowledge
• Vocabulary
12. Determining a Text’s Lexile
Level (Quantitative)
www.lexile.com/analyzer/
Select a passage from:
www.ReadWorks.org
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/
http://www.timeforkids.com/
http://magazines.scholastic.com/
or another website of your choice
13. Lexiles Do NOT Measure
Text Characteristics
• Age-appropriateness
of the content
• Text support (e.g.
pictures, pull-outs)
• Text quality (i.e. Is it
a good book?)
Reader Characteristics
• Interest and motivation
• Background knowledge
• Reading context and
purpose
14. Skim “Food that Fools You.”
Is this text appropriately complex for your grade level?
Why do you feel that way?
15. Teaching Kids to Read
Complex Texts
Tasks that Motivate Readers
– Collaborative Annotation / Silent Discussion
– Quick Draw / Quick Write
– Text-Based Debates
– Important Detail or Not?
Notes de l'éditeur
Moonshot is found in Appendix B for 2-3 grade informational textsParticipants read this quote. Discuss what is easy about it and what is difficult.It is not hard for students who can decode the words to understand this passage.Text complexity is more than an analysis of the current skills of readers. Readability is a balance between the reader’s skills and the text itself. Written on post-its to be placed in text complexity pyramid following pyramid slidesThis passage is hard for the following reasons:Quantitative: 990 LQualitative: background knowledge required (features of outer space, astronaut suits), above/below where? Use of dashes, wording: close themselves in special clothes, breaks in sentences with word “click”
About Time: A First Look at Time and Clocks is found in Appendix B for 4-5 grade informational textsParticipants read this quote. Discuss what is easy about it and what is difficult.It is not hard for students who can decode the words to understand this passage.Text complexity is more than an analysis of the current skills of readers. Readability is a balance between the reader’s skills and the text itself. Written on post-its to be placed in text complexity pyramid following pyramid slidesThis passage is hard for the following reasons:Quantitative: 1050 LQualitative: background knowledge required (features of outer space, astronaut suits), above/below where? Use of dashes, wording: close themselves in special clothes, breaks in sentences with word “click”
To help redress the situation described above, the Standards define a three-part model for determining how easy or difficult a particular text is to read as well as grade-by-grade specifications for increasing text complexity in successive years of schooling (Reading standard 10). These are to be used together with grade-specific standards that require increasing sophistication in students’ reading comprehension ability (Reading standards 1–9). The Standards thus approach the intertwined issues of what and how student read.
See Qualitative Measures of Text Complexity Rubric for greater detail
Participants select a text and use Lexile Analyzer to determine quantitative measurement
