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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 previous tips, visit the Monthly Newsletters tab and browse earlier issues.
Spotlight on Literatue:
Spotlight on Literatue:
Diverse Book Guides
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. day on January 19th, we are highlighing a collection of books and speeches that can be used as excellent resources in elementary, middle, and high school classess. These works can be used as opportunities to explore themes of justice, courage, and equality. His speeches can be analyzed for his power of words and how King advocated for change through non-violence. In addition, secondary students can also read Thoreau's essay "Resistance to Civil Government," the foundational text for the theory and practice of nonviolent civil disobedience followed by both Gahndi and Martin Luther King Jr.
Grades K-2
Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a Caledcott Honor book, Coretta Scott King Honor book, and a NYT best illustrated book. This beautiful picture book by Doreen Rappaport uses quotes from some of King's most beloved speeches to tell the story of his life and his work in an accessible way.
Grades 3-5
Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop is an award winning book that tells the story of a 9 year old girl who witnessed the Memphis sanitiation strike - King's final stand for justice with his famous last sermon, "I've Been to the Mountaintop." This story is inspired by the memories of a teachers who participated in the strikes as a young child.
All Grades
This powerfully illustrated edition of King's world-changing "I Have a Dream" is brought to life through a picture book. His words, paired with Caldecott Honor winner Kadir Nelson's paintings, make this a book that can be used by all grades. It can be used as an introduction to King's speech or used in a advanced placement classroom as students anaylze King's rhetoric.
Grades 8-12
March: Book One is a graphic novel that follows the life of John Lewis and his meeting with Martin Luther King. The story spans Lewis's life from his youth as a sharecropper, the beginning of the Nashville Student Movement, through the nonviolent sit-ins, and builds to the climax on the steps of City Hall. This graphic novel is the first in a triology.
Scaffolding Tip of the Month
Scaffolding Tip of the Month
"Get the Gist" or Gist Statements
What is a GIST statement?
It's a strategy for all grade levels to help students learn to write organized and concise summaries of their reading.
Why use this strategy?
It help students organize text for class discussion, text evidence, research, and synthesis.
How to use this strategy?
First chunk or divide text into a smaller portion for students. This could be a simple as a paragraph for elementary students, a section out of a textbook, or a chapter out of a novel.
Explicity teach and model how to look for the most important information (the who or the what) and the key ideas and details that connect valuable information.
Show students how to write a GIST statement when reading and annotating text. This can be used in research, synthesis, paraphrasing, and keeping track of vital information through longer works.
Explicitly Teach: How Do We Write a GIST Statement
Chunk or divide the text into smaller components for students to read and summarize.
Identify and mark the most important “who” or “what” the chunk of text is about.
List important information that is linked to the “who’ or the “what”
Side note: show students information that might not be valuable for the gist statement
Identify details that are not important or can be left out.
Synthesize or combine the important information to form a gist statement in 20 words or less!
The who / what + how or why
Write the gist statement in your own words.
Collect gist statements for the entirety of the text.
Resources You Can Use
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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