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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.
Scaffolding Tip of the Month
Scaffolding Tip of the Month
Over the past month, the ELA team has given several professional development opportunities over text complexity. A strategy that many teachers found useful is called 5 Word Summary from Fisher & Frey, Teaching Foundational Skills to Adolescent Readers. However, teachers of all grades have found this a helpful strategy in helping students learn how to understand what is the most important words in a chunk of text and, more importantly, learn how to summarize that chunk of text. Remember, the rigour is driven by the complexity of the text. This can easily be adapted to all grades and text levels.
Objective: To allow students to engage in collaborative discourse regarding their reading experience and to identify important details in a text and build summarizing skills.
Directions:
After reading the assigned passage, each student makes a list of the five most important words or phrases in the reading.
Once students have developed their list, they pair with another student to negotiate a consensus list of five words, merging their individual lists into a new, collaboratively created one.
Each student pair joins another student pair, and these four students repeat the process to generate a new five-word list that all agree upon.
These students use their finalized list to compose a summary of the assigned text.
Spotlight on Literatue:
Spotlight on Literatue:
Diverse Book Guides: Holiday Version
Winter is a season full of many different traditions and stories! We know our students and families celebrate in unique ways - that’s why this month’s ‘Spotlight on Literature’ features joyful books that showcase a variety of cultural celebrations and perspectives. There’s something for every grade level to enjoy!
Grades K-2
We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga is a story showcasing The word otsaliheliga (oh-jah-LEE-hay-lee-gah) used by members of the Cherokee Nation to express gratitude. Beginning in the fall with the new year and ending in summer, follow the Cherokee throughout their year of celebrations.
Grades K-2
The Lights that Dance in the Night by Yuval Zommer tells the story of the Northern Lights from their own perspective, describing their journey from space to Earth and the magic they bring to the animals and people in the Arctic.
Grades K-3
Twas Nochebuena by Roseanne Greenfild Thong is a bilingual, rhythmic retelling of "The Night Before Christmas." It captures a Latino family's Nochebuena celebration with references to tamales, champurrado, canciones, and family gatherings.
Grades 3-5
Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto tells the story of Maria who helps her family prepare tamales on Christmas Eve and while her mother momentarily steps away, Maria tries on her mother’s ring and then fears it has been accidentally mixed into the tamales. In a panicked, she and her cousins eat their way through the batch — and later the family rallies together to make things right.
Grades 2-5
The Cajun Night Before Christmas has been a part of Louisiana’s holiday traditions since it was first published in 1973. Take the classic story of jolly old St. Nicholas, place it in a Louisiana bayou setting, dress Santa Claus in muskrat “from his head to his foot,” pile his skiff high with toys, and hitch it to eight friendly alligators. This is a very funny version and could easily be used to teach colloqualisms.
Grades 2-5
Winter Holidays Around the World is a workbook for students to explore how Christmas is celebrated around the world. Students can learn about St. Lucia Day in Sweden, Diwali in India, Hanukkah in Israel, Solstice in the U.K., Kwanzaa in the United States, and Chinese New Year in China. This workbook is packed with activities and challenges, with map work, atlas work, reading and response passages, exploring cultures and languages, crafts, coloring, recipes, and more.
Middle -Secondary
A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote is a short story that follows a young boy, Buddy, and his elderly cousin as they prepare for Christmas in rural Alabama during the 1930s. Their close bond, simple holiday traditions, and the act of making fruitcakes for friends and neighbors create a warm, nostalgic tale about memory, family, and the spirit of giving.
Middle-Secondary
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is a must-read classic. Even though it has little cultural diveristy, it is a classic so renowned and revered that it has been adapted into hundreds of plays, movies, and television specials. A Christmas Carol has become entrenched into Christmas culture and is widely considered a story that must be read in one’s lifetime.
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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