How is reading complex text like lifting weights? Just as it’s impossible to build muscle without weight or resistance, it’s impossible to build robust reading skills without reading challenging text.
This document emphasizes the importance of using complex texts in education to help students build strong reading skills. The guide highlights the following points:
- Text Complexity and Student Development: Just as lifting weights builds physical strength, engaging with complex texts builds reading proficiency. The New York State Next Generation English Language Arts Standards emphasize the need for students to engage with increasingly challenging texts throughout their education to prepare for college and career demands.
- Three-Part Model of Text Complexity:
- Qualitative Measures: These include factors like purpose, structure, language clarity, and the knowledge demands of the text. Teachers use informed judgment to assess these qualities.
- Quantitative Measures: This includes data such as sentence length, word length, and Lexile levels. These provide a numeric estimate of difficulty, but don’t capture the full complexity of a text.
- Reader and Task Considerations: Teachers must also consider the student’s abilities and the tasks required, ensuring that texts are appropriately challenging.
- Gradual Release of Responsibility: Complex texts should be introduced gradually, with initial support from teachers. This allows students to become comfortable with challenging materials as they transition from guided practice to independent reading.
- Using Rubrics to Assess Text Complexity: Rubrics help teachers evaluate the complexity of a text by assessing factors such as layout, language features, and knowledge demands. This approach helps in determining what support students might need to successfully engage with the text.
- Examples of Texts: The document provides examples of literary and informational texts with similar Lexile levels but different complexities. For example, The Book Thief has a relatively low Lexile score but is considered complex due to its use of figurative language, narrative style, and deep themes. In contrast, a physics article might be challenging because of its domain-specific vocabulary and abstract concepts.
- Challenges in Supporting Students: Teachers need to plan for the complexity of both the texts and the tasks they set for students. This includes using strategies like anticipation guides, visual aids, and scaffolds that help students navigate the text.
In conclusion, the document emphasizes the importance of understanding text complexity from multiple angles—qualitative, quantitative, and task-based—and tailoring instruction to meet the needs of students, ensuring they develop the necessary skills to comprehend complex materials across disciplines.