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The Value of Tackling Complex Text
Supporting readers who are working toward grade level doesn’t mean avoiding challenge. In fact, research shows that students grow when they engage with grade-level and above texts—with the right scaffolds in place. Thoughtful support builds confidence, independence, and deeper comprehension.
Each month, we’ll share a practical, research-based scaffolding strategy you can use immediately in your classroom. Remember to pair comprehension work with vocabulary and background knowledge for the strongest results.
To view more scaffolding tips, CLICK HERE to access a list of all strategies shared in previous ELA newsletters
Scaffolding Tip of the Month
Scaffolding Tip of the Month
Helping Students with Question Answer Relationships
Teaching students strategies for answering questions is an important part of comprehension instruction. Question-Answer Relationship is a research-based method for language framework developed by Tiffany Rapheal (1986) for enhancing students’ ability to talk about and answer comprehension questions. This strategy is applicable for both literary and informational text and can easily be adapted for all grade levels.
Directions:
Select a portion of the text to read (chunk text based on age of reader).
Develop various text-based and text-specific questions and over the passage with various levels of complexity and Depth of Knowledge requirements.
Display a QAR teaching chart, such as the example shown below.
Explain to students that they can use the QAR whenever they need to answer questions about what they are reading.
Point out the different types of questions (In The Text and In My Head).
Practice with students over a chunk of text with gradual release scaffolding in mind.
Teach students to identify the type of question (right there, think and search, blend text information with their own understanding, on my own) and then how to answer as they read the test.
Spotlight on Literatue:
Spotlight on Literatue:
Diverse Book Guides
For the month of February, we’re excited to share three new diverse book guides designed for early elementary, grades 3–5, and grades 4–6. These resources are intended to complement your HQIM by offering meaningful opportunities for students to explore diverse perspectives, build empathy, and deepen comprehension. Each guide supports instruction aligned to standards such as analyzing point of view (RL.6) and comparing and contrasting experiences and themes (RL.9), while encouraging rich classroom discussion.
We Belong.pdfStepping Stones.pdfFront Desk.pdfResources You Can Use
"...Success with Complex Text" by Fisher and Frey
"...Success with Complex Text" by Fisher and Frey
If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to explore the work of Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey, I encourage you to take a few minutes to check out their blog and research. They have written several impactful books—many focused on middle and high school instruction—that offer practical strategies and insights valuable for educators across all grade levels.
Attached is a helpful article that provides clear, easy-to-apply guidance for supporting students as they engage with complex text. The authors share explicit instructional steps that can be incorporated into everyday classroom practice, along with thoughtful approaches for developing strong, text-dependent questions that deepen comprehension and promote higher levels of thinking. It’s a quick read with many practical takeaways, and I hope you’ll find ideas you can use right away in your classroom.
Joan Sedita's New Book!
Joan Sedita's New Book!
I had the opportunity to join Joan Sedita's webinar showcasing her new book, The Essentials of Adolescent Literacy. It proves to be a much-needed and powerful resource that includes evidence-based reading and writing instructional strategies for grades 5-12. This book can help secondary educators understand the unique aspects of adolescent literacy. It provides practical suggestions for integrating reading and writing instruction into content-area classrooms and providing data-driven intervention for older struggling students.
Here are 5 major takeaways you’ll learn from this practical guide:
How adolescent literacy develops (including critical information from current adolescent literacy research)
How to integrate literacy instruction grounded in the science of reading into all subject areas, so you can help middle and high school students learn to read, write, and discuss content confidently
How to implement evidence-based teaching practices for vocabulary, comprehension, text structure, writing, discussion, and advanced word study
How to support adolescents with literacy difficulties—including dyslexia and executive function deficits—in both classroom and intervention settings
How to use a secondary literacy assessment model to support individualized, data-driven reading interventions for older students who struggle with foundational skills
Book Information and Review
Book Information and Review
There are many adolescent readers who, for a variety of reasons, find it difficult to connect with written words and have fallen behind on their foundational reading skills. Thankfully, it’s never too late to give these necessary skills a boost and help students find joy in reading and learning. Armed with equity, empathy, evidence-based research, and practical application, Teaching Foundational Skills to Adolescent Readers provides classroom practices teachers can use with the whole class or with small groups to integrate reading support seamlessly with grade-level content learning.
Bestselling authors Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, along with Sarah Ortega, Kierstan Barbee, and Aida Allen-Rotell, creatively organize the book around a metaphor: adolescent literacy is a battery―when all the parts are connected, working together, and fully charged―literacy can thrive.
Personal Review: The Teaching Foundational Skills to Adolescent Readers book is a rare and valuable resource that focuses specifically on adolescent readers—an often overlooked age group. It offers strong, practical advice that educators can immediately apply in their classrooms. I was able to read it in an afternoon and came away with several annotated pages of ideas to revisit and implement. I especially appreciated the authors’ use of the battery metaphor, with each step and strategy representing another level of a student’s understanding. If you or your school are seeking an effective, research-based resource to support middle and high school readers, this book is an excellent addition to your professional library.
Book Information and Review
Book Information and Review
Top-rated by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), this bestselling, user-friendly guide to effective reading instruction is solidly grounded in the science of reading.
Combining the best features of an academic text and a practical, hands-on teacher’s guide, the Teaching Reading Sourcebook comprehensively covers the scientific basis and instructional elements of the five essential components of effective reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. To facilitate comprehension and learning, the Sourcebook is organized according to the guiding questions behind explicit instruction (what? why? when? and how?).
The 3rd Edition includes a new section on reading instruction within a Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) framework.
Personal Review: I have found this sourcebook an incredibly user-friendly and practical resource for educators. Its clear organization allows you to quickly access any component and find valuable, research-based strategies for all grade levels. I especially appreciate how the content is laid out by progression and explicit instruction steps, making it easy to apply in real classroom settings. As a former high school teacher, I found the sections on fluency and comprehension particularly insightful—not only for secondary students but for supporting readers at every level. This book is truly a “go-to” resource that I would highly recommend to any educator looking to strengthen their reading instruction.
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