WHAT IS TEXT COMPLEXITY?

-Text Complexity examines 4 different components:

-Qualitative:

-Levels of meaning, Structure, and Knowledge Demands

-Quantitative:

-Readability measures

-Reader-task components:

-Motivation, Knowledge, and Experiences

-Task Variables:

-Purpose and Questions

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

-“…Assessment process puts you and the student in touch with a text” (p104)

-The complexity of a text being assigned can make or break an assignment, and it is important to ensure that you have assessed it before assigning it to students.

“In order to become college and career ready, students need to read increasingly complex texts as they progress through Grades K–12, and they need the strategies to comprehend these texts” (Pearson, p. 56).

READING INVENTORIES

-Reading inventories are alternatives to a standardized reading test

-CARI (Content Area Reading Inventory) is very informal, and success is measures based on achievement on the task, not on how well the student did compared to others

-Should focus on comprehension and ability

-FORMAT: Student reads, teacher observes

READING RATES

-STEPS TO GET AN ESTIMATE OF READING RATE:

     1. Have students note time it takes to read a section

2. As they need, have them check timer/stopwatch

3. Figure out rate by calculating words read per minute

4. Determine the number of correct answers on reading                    comprehension test

READABILITY

-Formulas used to determine how “readable” a book is to different grade and development levels of students

–DOES NOT account for experience and knowledge that students are bringing to the content material

FRY GRAPH

-Edward Fry (1977)

-Studies 2 variables: sentence length and word length

-This particular graph predicts difficulty & readability within one grade level

LEXILE LEVELS

-A.J. Stenner and Malbert Smith III (1989)

-This graph shows range of reading level from 300L and above to 1210L

-Has been recently realigned to meet Common Core Standards

SOURCES

https://assets.pearsonschool.com/asset_mgr/current/201217/Text_Complexity_G1.pdf

https://pdo.ascd.org/LMSCourses/PD11OC132/media/Literacy_HSS_M2_Reading_Complex_Texts.pdf

Vacca, Richard T., et al. Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum. 12th ed., Pearson, 2017.