embedding or complexity. A text gradient analysis would place this text at a
6th grade reading level.
Yet many students at this age would
have difficulty understanding this beautiful book. The reason is obviously not
in the book itself but in the interaction
between the reader and the book. Few
preteens have had the emotional experiences that would prepare them to
understand the old man’s determination
to maintain hope and dignity in the
face of overwhelming odds. Students’
background knowledge, including
developmental, experiential, and cognitive factors, influences their ability to
understand the explicit and inferential
qualities of a text.
also maintaining understanding across
a text. Therefore, fluency instruction
should emphasize sentence structure
and meaning. Teachers should have
students pause to discuss the meaning
of the text. They should pair repeated
readings of the same text with questions
that require the student to read closely
for detail and key ideas.
Ongoing, solid vocabulary instruction
is another essential component to
help students develop skill in reading
complex text. This instruction should
text, we noticed its beautiful language,
vivid imagery, and well-wrought
descriptions. Despite its beauty,
however, we found it hard to make
sense of this passage. The problem was
that we couldn’t tell whether it was
meant to be a literary text or a scientific
one. Without knowing what kind of
text we were reading or what we were
expected to do with the information, we
had no idea what to attend to.
Fluency is not merely lining up one sentence
after another and reading them aloud quickly;
What Can Teachers Do
About Text Complexity?
Knowledge of text complexity can help
teachers design three important components of literacy instruction: building
skills, establishing purpose, and
fostering motivation.
it’s also maintaining understanding across a text.
Build Skills
Let’s face it: Some students can’t make
sense of a complex text because they
can’t decode it. Any older student who
still struggles with decoding needs intervention to address this difficulty.
But even students who have basic
decoding skills sometimes struggle to
deploy these skills easily and accurately
enough to get a purchase on challenging
text. To help these students develop
reading fluency, teachers should give
them lots of practice with reading the
same text, as well as instruction to help
them develop a stronger sense of where
to pause in sentences, how to group
words, and how their voices should rise
or fall at various junctures when reading
aloud.
Fluency instruction becomes more
powerful when it’s taught not as an end
in itself, but rather in the context of stu-
dents’ attempts to make sense of a par-
ticular text. True fluency is not merely
lining up one sentence after another
and reading them aloud quickly; it’s
focus not just on domain-specific words
and phrases that describe the central
concepts in the subject area, but also
on general academic words. Effective
vocabulary instruction usually provides
a rich exploration of word meanings, in
which students do more than just copy
dictionary definitions—they consider
synonyms, antonyms, categories, and
specific examples for the words under
study.
Establish Purpose
Recently, we were asked to explain why
a passage about deserts was challenging
for readers. As we started to read the
frequently encounter hybrid texts that
combine a narrative story with expos-
itory information. For example, in the
Magic School Bus books, the characters
take field trips to learn about electricity,
weather, dinosaurs, and other topics.
When reading these books, children
need to determine whether to focus on
the story of the field trip or the infor-
mation about the concepts. Until they
figure it out, they may feel confused.
