Text Complexity

In terms of supporting secondary students who are not yet reading at a sixth-grade reading level, my question about text complexity is the following:

What types of texts are the most helpful for accelerating reading growth?

• • Books close to students’ reading levels?

  • Books at grade level (with scaffolds provided and/or apprenticeship in how to access texts written far above one’s reading level)?

  • Both?

This has been a burning question for many teachers given the requirement of Common Core for students to read complex texts. This question is significantly more complex for students who are reading far below grade level than it is for students who are reading a couple of years below grade level.

From reading about this topic and asking multiple researchers, I feel certain that there is not clear empirical evidence to answer this question. While I found no definitive answers, I offer some insights below from two renown scholars.

Perspectives From Two Renowned Scholars: Timothy Shanahan and David Pearson

Timothy Shanahan: Texts at Varied Levels

Timothy Shanahan, in a blog dated June 26, 2016, outlines the debate and shares his opinion here.

I highlight one of his responses below.

No, not all texts need to be at an instructional level.

If one challenges the idea of placing kids in instructional level books to facilitate learning (e.g., guided reading, Accelerated Reader), why is the alternative to only place kids in frustration level texts? The idea that all reading should be at the instructional level is wrong in part because of the inherent notion that all reading experience should be at any particular level. Text difficulty should vary; kids should move across a range of texts from easy to difficult.

In the teaching of most skilled activities (e.g., foreign language, dancing, bicycle racing), the idea is not to protect the learners from harder applications of those skills, but to vary the routines between relatively easy challenges and those that scare and potentially embarrass the learner. If you have any doubt, go learn to do something.

Shanahan's suggestion that teachers should select texts with a variety of text difficulty seems to be a logical approach given what we know and do not know about the research about text complexity. He is certainly not the first to suggest the practice of using a variety of levels of texts. For example, using a variety of texts within one lesson is part of the Reading Recovery protocol, as referenced below. His suggestion is also aligned with my own practices in the classroom.

David Pearson: Nike and Sherlock Holmes Reading

In an interview on February 26, 2016 with David Pearson, a world-renowned scholar from UC Berkeley, I gained some insights that are relevant to both English learners and native English speakers. As is typical with David Pearson, he takes a historical, long view when he considers current dilemmas. In the interview, he hearkened back to a document, "Becoming a Nation of Readers," published in 1984, in which the authors suggest that readers should have a chance every day to read texts within their zones of competence and confidence that will not bring them to their knees (paraphrased from the interview); Pearson explained that having the opportunity to read relatively "easy" texts gives students a chance to demonstrate to themselves that they can “do it.” This is where his Nike analogy comes in: “Just do it.” Additionally, Pearson explained that every day students also need to read texts that stretch their knowledge and strategic capacity. When students are asked to read texts far beyond their zones of competence and confidence, they can “get a little help from their friends” and engage in “Sherlock Holmes” reading. Students need to read both types of texts, be able to distinguish between the two and know how to read texts of varied difficulty levels differently. The following slide from Pearson’s Powerpoint “Tools for Improving Reading Comprehension” given at Oklahoma State in 2014 summarizes this idea:

In terms of considering the texts and the reader, I learned in my interview with David Pearson that we should consider “bands” of what students can handle and not think of matching texts and students' reading levels as a point-to-point correspondence. Additionally, Pearson explained that there is still quite a bit of uncertainty about the measurements of texts as well as the measurements of students’ reading levels. Keeping this band of uncertainty is important when using measurements of students' reading levels and the reading level and/or complexity of texts. Pearson added that “neither the estimate of your ability nor the estimate of text complexity is sufficiently precise.” When we consider texts to use for classrooms and when we consider placement of students, we have to keep in mind that a "band of uncertainty" exists for these estimates. While some educators may feel that matching students to texts does not have a place in the new landscape of Common Core, I believe that considering bands of proficiency and helping students find accessible texts for extensive reading still has an important role in reading development, particularly for students who enter high school reading below a sixth-grade reading level. At-home extensive reading programs supported during school are effective means to provide differentiated reading. Programs such as Reading Plus, Achieve 3000 and Newsela provide online options for differentiating and monitoring students’ reading progress. In my own classroom, I would only have students use an online program alongside a robust extensive reading program that includes reading actual print books. When teachers use computer- adapted technology, it is important to consider overall that computer use in the classroom has not yielded higher achievement overall for students. Thus, we need to be selective about what we use and how we use it and closely monitor the students' results. Here is one recent article about such findings.

In short, while the research community has not yet reached consensus, my conclusion from reading the research on this topic is the following: students need to learn how to unpack and decipher seemingly incomprehensible texts and practice this skill with support and independently; they also as need to have the opportunity to regularly read texts that they can comprehend fairly easily.

The following are the resources I found the most helpful in regard to this topic.

Hiebert, E.H. & Pearson, P.D. (2014). Understanding text complexity: Introduction to the special issue. The Elementary School Journal, 115(2), 153-160.

Valencia, S.W. & Wixson, K.K. & Pearson, P.D. (2014). Putting text complexity in context: Refocusing on comprehension of complex text. The Elementary School Journal, 115(2), 270-289.

Bunch, G. C., Walqui, A. & Pearson, P. D. (2014). Complex text and new common standards in the United States: Pedagogical implications for English learners.TESOL Quarterly, 48, 533–559. doi: 10.1002/tesq.175.