Eight Ways to Help Kids Read Complex Text

I must, respectfully, disagree with the idea that instructional level texts are to be used all the time. It amazes me how far afield people get from what they should be doing. Leveled texts are specifically for guided reading work with a teacher. Other than that, students should be encouraged to choose from a wide variety of texts - easy and challenging - in different genres and formats...leveling reading ability and leveled readers are a teacher's tool.

Margaret-- Nobody, including me, says that students should only read complex text or grade level text. However, your notion that "leveled texts are specifically for guided reading work with a teacher" flies in the face of virtually all research on the topic. That notion is a theory and it is one that has not held up well if the goal is to maximize students' reading achievement. I also disagree with you on the idea that students should read challenging text independently, but relative easy text when there is a teacher there to help. Logically, you would want to reverse that right -- kids should take on hard things when an adult is available to support them, and easier things when they are on their own.

tim

Tim, you and your fellow researchers have elucidated a Very powerful
Theory of action for Teaching and learning to read. The K-12 system has failed to adopt this system systematically and implement it with fidelity and accountability as we continue to be a n immature profession where almost
Anything goes! No?

This is excellent advice for reading teachers, Tim. Your guidance is clear and actionable! I’m also very grateful for your statement that if students are struggling with basic decoding that “[t]he complex text prescription is not for them”. So important for teachers to understand this!

I had the privilege and the challenge to step into a parochial school classroom where 3 of the 21 students were reading at grade level. Over the course of the year, I was able to accelerate the progress and, thereby, promote the proficiency of those students. At the end of the year, their test results indicated a perfect bell curve.

The next year I was offered the opportunity to be the same students' teacher again, in a "looping" situation. What a learning experience! How invigorating! There was one student who could be deemed "non-proficient", yet she had made so much progress! Because it was a private school, no special education program was available. I advised her parents to advocate for Nikki and get her into a public school where she would get appropriate instruction.

Was I a rebel? No I was an advocate.

Hello Dr. Shanahan, No question, but definitely a comment. Thank you for this blog and your podcast along with your decades of research. I have and will continue to share this with my teacher candidates who are earning their Master’s degree. I love being able to give them this content only days after you post. :) Your outreach continues to impact lives to a degree you may not know. Donna Block/Alliant International University California School of Education

Quick comment to Dr. Hasbrouck too! Thank you as well. Your research is all over my doctoral papers as well as my university students’ work. What a great surprise to see you in these comments. I feel like I just got to connect with two famous people I’ve long admired :)
So exciting! Donna Block

I read this with fascination and appreciate how important 3rd/4th reading proficiency is. Twenty-two years ago I wrote a book called "Textbooks and the Students Who Can't Read Them" published by Brookline Books in Cambridge (now long gone). I have since pivoted my interest to help parents better prepare their kids for reading - during the first 5 years. ("Make Time for Reading" jeancfahey.com) and "I'll Build You a Bookcase" Lee and Low Publishers). It's been gratifying to work in the reading field by starting in the home and with parents. But my hat goes off to you and classroom teachers.

I do wonder what wrong practices are producing such a large fraction of a class with reading ages well below a recognized reading age level.

Way back in the '50s as a student I saw every child in my class reading at the correct level for their age, with precocious students reading advanced books . Five year olds who arrived at school reading skipped a year. Parents had the reading books and everyone knew how to teach early reading. Academics sometimes confound the situation with educo and psychobabble..

The method then was still traditional phonics ( very similar to structured literacy) and a mixture of controlled vocabulary repetitive texts with texts also making use of all the main ,about 120 , spelling patterns. There were few illustrations and of course no guessing from pictures or context. Ten spelling words of phonic and common words was the homework , with a big spelling test on Fridays. Those words you got wrong became homework to relearn . There were still drills and skills exercises , so scorned later.
Being a brain damaged child from a difficult birth I personally had learning difficulties . My mother , a new entrant teacher gave me copious amounts of spelling and even to this day I can remember the tantrums and tears I turned on. I disliked spelling . After being near the bottom of the class in everything for a few years , my mother' s efforts paid off and at 12 years old I was placed in an extension class for bright children This is to illustrate , not my ability , but the plasticity of the human brain to overcome difficulties with effective teaching. and discipline. Underachievers can display all sorts of frightful behaviors . Get every child achieving from the beginning is essential. Researchers comment on how much more difficult it is to remediate children .

This, having every single child with an IQ perhaps over 80, achieving in the early years is I believe the secret . Refuse to have any child fail. Wiley Blevins suggest while some children need only a few exposures to a new concept , some -stubborn, - with -memories - of -a sieve and cloth- eared children need 100 exposures ! I was probably in that category.

My mother when she was 60 years old had 100 students a week and succeeded with them all . Child -centered philosophies don't work with really difficult children . They must learn to do what they are told . This is achieved with carrots and sticks and where possible fun and humour. For children that hated books and threw them around the room ,my mother used a chocolate raisin at the end of each line in the reading book as a reward for the child. Excessive praise and encouragement is often needed for these 'brats' .

I haven't noted any contradictions in the research Timothy so dutifully lists for us , with what my mother did but I do think observing the tactics of master teachers is also very worthwhile. Academics rely on their research but teaching as we know is also an art.

One suggestion I have for teachers is to perhaps do some home tuition of really difficult students and succeeding with them gives confidence that you can succeed and have them become good readers at the correct level. Make sure to have a good selection of stamps and stickers . For some reason . kids mostly all like these. Also a bit of trial and error of SoR material is needed . Some children do better with different materials . Include games which the whole family can participate in.