Rejecting Instructional Level Theory

11/3/2011

Dr. Shanahan - I have a question about your blog of August 21, 2011,
Rejecting Instructional Level Theory. Am I correct that you are suggesting
that, with appropriate scaffolding, it might be appropriate for a teacher
to use text that is technically at the student's" frustration" level? (I
think 85% accuracy was the example you used.)

My reason for asking: I was asked to do some staff development with the
faculty at my school this year concerning the Common Core Standards. At
our first meeting, we looked at the Standards' explanation of text
complexity, and talked using more substantive text - particularly
informational text related to our social studies curriculum - during
reading groups. We realized that our selections from the bookroom at the
students' assessed reading levels would not take us very far. Then we
looked at text available from several online sources, such as World Book
Online. The Lexiles were in the range of our more able readers, but not
the students who struggle with reading (who need the most exposure to
interesting text.) Your blog suggested to me that we might want to try
using this more challenging text, and provide more scaffolding that we
might be accustomed to giving.

You spoke at a literacy event at our county several years ago, and one of
the topics you addressed was "over-leveling." Your talk made us reconsider
how we grouped students, and to work on increasing instructional time,
rather than having many leveled groups. Your blog brought that talk to
mind. Thank you for including a link so that readers can ask you email
questions, and for all your contributions to literacy.

11/4/2011

Mary Jo,

Thanks for your thoughtful letter. There is no set percentage of accuracy
that will indicate the optimum level of placement. However, those accuracy
levels do give you an indication of hoe much scaffolding, rereading and
motivation will be needed for student success.

There are studies showing learning for students who are placed at
frustration level.

Good luck.

2/2/2012

This thesis is consonant with the concept sometimes referred to as "equity pedagogy" i.e., that what under-achieving students need is not to have academic work watered down, but, exactly the contrary; to have their work "watered up." The well-documented problem with the former is that is quite simply boring and demeaning, and thus alienting to a good number of students (especially those less likely to engage in work just because the teacher told them to). While watering up the curriuculum obviously does require considerable scaffolding and (metacognitive demystifying of the intellectual learning process), when effectively implemented, the results are usually spectacular (proving that all kids CAN in fact achieve at high levels, given the right conditions). Among many others, Northwestern Professor Carol Lee's work provides especially compelling evidence of this.

2/2/2012

Ben--

I appreciate your comments and generally agree with them. I am not satisfied that Carol has actually published such studies. She makes claims, for instance, that the interpretations that students make of contemporary literature are as high level as those required of classical literature. Unfortunately, she has no way of measuring such equivalencies, and, thus, I remain skeptical that some of the games and texts are really as demanding as Shakespeare, etc. With that quibble aside, it is clear that there really isn't much evidence supporting the levels we've been teaching with, so trying something harder could possibly work--as you suggest.

thanks again.

tim

2/20/2012

Thanks for this article. It confirms what i have been thinking in relation to my 5 year. Olds reading. My daughter is in her third term of reception and i have felt the level of reader the school wants her to read is too easy. She is bored by the stories and if i read the story to her first as the teacher says to she repeats it back in a bored sing song voice. If she reads it herself and I help with any difficult words she seems to enjoy the experience a lot more.

3/7/2012

I was recently given your article entitled “Common Core vs. Guided Reading: Rejecting Instructional Level Theory.” As a NBCT in Literacy: Reading/Language Arts, I found it quite interesting. Being a former reading teacher, I have taught guided reading in the past. Additionally, I was a trained Reading Recover teacher (the horse that led guided reading into existence). Currently, I am an Assistant Principal at an elementary school. I do not see that guided reading should be a problem as far as “Core” instruction. I have my own opinion of what constitutes “guided reading.”

· First, guided reading should be taught in conjunction with shared reading. Shared reading may have many names, such as whole group or core. Many people may have the misconception that guided reading should be taught separately. Shared reading (core) is where all instruction should begin.
· All students should have the reading core curriculum (whole group/shared) every day to make certain that each child experiences grade level vocabulary and content.
· Guided reading should be called differentiated instruction. This type of instruction should be for practicing the skills, modeling, and instruction that was introduced during “core/whole group/shared” instruction.
· Guided reading is another tool that teachers should have in their toolbox.
· Guided reading is not for every student. Some students need to be in a skill based group or in a literature circle.
· Guided reading cannot be research validated because it is not a scripted program. Each teacher will be teaching it differently—based on the group or the needs of the students.

Thanks for letting me share my viewpoint of guided reading and core (or shared reading).

4/6/2012

I disagree with your thinking. First, let us define "guided reading" appropriately from Fountas and Pinnell's work. "Guided reading is a context in which a teacher supports each reader's development of effective strategies for processing novel texts at increasingly challenging levels of difficulty" (p. 2, Fountas & Pinnell, 1996). To understand this definition, we first must understand when guided reading should take place within a framework of literacy instruction. (Please visit www.myread.org/images/scaffolding/scaffolding.pdf for a copy of the graph described below.) Imagine a graph with a downward arrow from the top left corner to the bottom right corner. The top left corner is labeled "Read Aloud." The bottom right corner is labeled "Independent Reading." In between are labels such as "Teacher Modeling," "Shared Reading," and "Literature Circles." The label of "Guided Reading" is located just before independent reading in the bottom right corner. It is the last piece of instructional support before the student takes that level of text to independence. This means that the texts a student takes on in guided reading should allow the student to use and practice integrating the skills and strategies the he would use while reading independently. Explicit teaching of reading skills or strategies should have already occurred in instructional situations prior to guided reading (i.e., modeling, shared reading, etc.). That is why Fountas and Pinnell maintain that a student should require "a minimum of support" (p. 2, Fountas & Pinnell, 1996) while reading a text in guided reading. The text should be just beyond the difficulty of the texts the student can read independently – the definition of instructional level text. The student cannot integrate known strategies while struggling through a text that is too difficult. As adults, we rarely, if ever, pick up a text in which we could only read 85% of the words. It has been estimated that adults regularly read texts in which they have 98% word accuracy or above (see Richard Allington’s work).

"The ultimate goal in guided reading is to help children learn how to use independent reading strategies successfully" (p. 2). The “strategies” Fountas and Pinnell refer to are NOT isolated comprehension strategies. These are reading strategies that support a proficient reading process (see Getting It Together by Ian Morrison). It is ludicrous to introduce a child to a highly complex text without ensuring that a well-working reading process is in place. A beginning reader’s process will break down if too much demand is placed on any one factor of the process (i.e. content of the text). According to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), one factor of text complexity is reader-dependent (Appendix A, CCSS). If this is true, then the leveled readers we use with our youngest readers (in a carefully thought out, increasingly challenging order) are indeed complex for that reader at that time. The Continuum of Literacy Learning by Fountas and Pinnell is the best example of how text complexity should be considered when teachers choose leveled texts.

Finally, Marie M. Clay published years of research around the reading process and how children become literate. Much of Fountas and Pinnell’s work, as well as many other authors, is based on the work of Marie Clay. Some of her research highlighted her work around instructional levels and scaffolding based on many trusted sources like Jerome Bruner and Lev Vygotsky. Should we assume that these pioneers of educational and psychological research are mistaken? I think not! (Please see Becoming Literate and Change Over Time in Children’s Literacy Development both by Marie M. Clay, specifically the bibliography.)

If we do not consider how to appropriately think about and utilize text complexity in kindergarten and first grade, the Common Core State Standards could cause more harm than good.

4/6/2012

Robby-
In fact, these "pioneers in education" are not wrong about these things, because none of them ever put forth a scheme for how students reading levels and text complexity levels should match up. Just because those who have promoted such schemes claim to be doing so on the basis of Vygotsky's theory of zone of proximal development does not make their placement schemes research based.

To say, on the basis of research, that students need to be placed in a particular level of text because it would somehow optimize or improve their learning requires that one place students at different text levels to see what the learning differences would be. That, up to now, has not been done with the F&S levels. Like you, I do believe that the F&S levels seem logical and appropriate for use with beginning readers. However, I also am eagerly awaiting the results of efforts now underway to formulate an alternative beginning-reading placement scheme based on actual research with children.

Beyond grade 1, however, the evidence swings away from your claims: Being placed in the levels of materials that you say must be avoided seems to lead to more learning than placing students in the relatively easy texts that you (and F&S) recommend.

You might have noticed that the common core does not specify beginning text levels (something I pointed out in my blogs on this issue). One of my concerns is that teachers will move to hard text too early, not giving students a sufficient chance to figure out the decoding system, etc. However, continuing to focus on materials that are "almost at the independent level" beyond that neither matches well with the common core recommendations nor with actual research data.

4/13/2012

Why do you think that Reading Recovery is still highly rated on the What Works Clearinghouse website? Since this instructional text leveling "scheme" is used in Reading Recovery, and extensive research (according to the WWC website) has proven Reading Recovery to be effective in raising reading achievement, then wouldn't it be logical to say that this instructional text leveling idea (combined with high-quality teaching, of course) is effective?

As for your comment that placing students in a certain level of text "requires that one place students at different text levels to see what the learning differences would be," this has been done. Marie Clay and Richard Allington, among others, have written about the initial work of leveling text and how students respond. In What Really Matters for Struggling Readers, Allington says, “Clay, and her colleagues in New Zealand and the United States, actually tried the books out with children! They recorded the difficulty children had and used that information to locate each book within a level of difficulty.” He goes on to describe the criteria they used to level the texts and to explain that others, like Fountas and Pinnell, have adapted their leveling systems from Clay’s work.

Other work has been done around instructional levels and links with time on task and comprehension. Treptow, Burns, and McComas (2007) published a study that was adapted from an earlier study by Gickling and Armstrong (1978) linking these factors. Chall (1996) has also published work around qualitatively assessing text difficulty for comprehension, which lends itself to the intention of the instructional leveling system – scaffolding.

While I agree with you that beginning readers should have time to “figure out the decoding system” in appropriately leveled texts, I must go back to the point I made in my earlier post about word accuracy. What adult would read a text with only 85% word accuracy without 1) becoming frustrated or 2) meaning breaking down? That means that 15 out of 100 running words would be unknown to the reader, thus interfering with meaning or causing the reader to stop and lookup the word. This is unrealistic. So, why would we force children (after first grade, according to you) to endure this very thing? It does not make sense!

After meeting and talking with some of the contributors to and/or people who have influenced the Common Core State Standards, I don’t think they intended for the text complexity portion of the Standards to be interpreted in that way. I believe that Freddy Hiebert and Sally Hampton would cringe at the notion that 85% word accuracy is sufficient, for any age reader.

4/13/2012


The reason why Reading Recovery is rated positively by WWC is because there is at least one well-designed study showing that it can confer an advantage to children on at least one reputable measure of literacy. But, remember this discussion is not about Reading Recovery instruction but about leveled books, and it would be impossible to say whether the benefits of RR are due to the book leveling or to other factors. I am the What Works Clearinghouse advisor on reading and it would be very illogical to say that the reason that RR works is because of the book leveling. To make such a claim you’d have to test it directly by providing the RR instruction to some kids who were using the leveled books and to some who were not. Of course, that has not been done.
Clay did not ever study the impact of different levels of books on children’s learning. She may have tried books out with kids and noted that some books were harder than others (who hasn’t?). But the issue isn’t whether some books are harder than others. The issue is does working with particular levels of books or some specific leveling scheme confer a learning advantage or not. Your idea that you can intuit what children will learn best from is interesting, given that it contradicts actual results with children. (I’m always amazed at anyone who believes things so strongly even when those beliefs don’t match existing evidence).
Freddy Hiebert has been quite vocal against making beginning texts too hard, and she has been intentionally silent on the difficulty levels of texts for older students (in fact, she has gone out of her way to make the distinction). Freddy is currently working with Lexile on a large study in which they are trying to come up with a better scheme (than the one you have embraced) for leveling beginning reading books. But if their work bears fruit and we are better able to sequence the levels of beginning reading books, we still will not know how best to place children within that sequence if the goal is to maximize student learning.

4/20/2012

It seems that most of the research around leveling texts or matching texts to readers has been done by observing struggling readers or students with disabilities. What specific research shows that using a leveled text approach (utilizing a leveling system similar to the one I have previously described) has a negative impact on typically progressing young readers?

4/20/2012

That’s correct and since just observing students using text cannot tell you whether such use is more or less beneficial than anything else (though that obviously does not stop people from making such claims without supporting evidence) – which is why we need research.
There is no research that I know of that finds using leveled books to have a negative impact on readers, but there are studies showing that the book match strategies recommended by F&S do not confer as much learning advantage as placing students in harder texts (see citations in the blogs that you are commenting on). Thus, the negative is that students do not learn as much.

4/23/2012

The Morgan study and the O’Connor study you have referenced both report their findings using poor or struggling readers. Where is the research with typically progressing students? O’Connor said it best: “we cannot expect the relations found for these poor readers in Grades 2 and 4 to generalize to average-reader populations” (p. 16).

4/23/2012

That’s interesting. Your original argument was that leveled books were the best way to teach students to read because they are used in Reading Recovery, a program for the lowest achieving first-graders. And you are upset that I pointed out counterevidence drawn from studies of students who were below average (though not as low as the RR kids). Thus, your theory has shifted to one in which working with hard texts is good for low readers, but would not be good for the students above them. I guess the smartest, most accomplished and supported kids just can’t handle the challenges.

That suggests to me is that you are no longer trying to understand what might help kids learn, and have shifted to arguing for the instructional status quo no matter what the counterevidence might be. I don’t know if the common core is going to lead to higher reading achievement, but I do know that if enough teachers respond to it in this way (“I’m going to keep doing whatever I am, no matter what the evidence”), then there is nothing will improve for our kids.

4/24/2012

The Morgan study used dyad reading, which paired a proficient reader with a poor reader, as the context for taking on text at the student’s frustration level. The O’Connor study used a one on one “adult listener” to provide unknown words and definitions to students while they attempted to take on text at their frustration level. Are you suggesting that elementary teachers use these instructional strategies as they start using more difficult texts? It seems neither of these studies used anything like guided reading, neither the routine nor purpose. Since guided reading is the main setting where I (and Fountas and Pinnell) propose instructional leveled texts should be used in the elementary classroom, I would like to see at least one successful study that uses a similar instructional approach with text at the student’s frustration level. Where is this research?

Also, you never answered my previous question. Where is the research with typically progressing students?

4/24/2012

I agree with you, Robby. If you want to continue to use guided reading in that way you are using it, you should have at least one study that shows its effectiveness. There is no such study on guided reading so you should stop until you have done that study.

5/15/2012

Robby,
Shanahan doesn't "get" it. His arguments are biased in favor of his "bottom up" theoretical framework. I've found that these folks are so adamant in their views they are not willing to question their own assumptions about how children learn to become literate. They, in fact, conveniently overlook significant research, and they didn't learn from the dismal failure of NCLB.

There are so many erroneous statements in his replies that to even attempt an argument is futile!

Kathy

5/21/2012

I teach Kindergarten in a K-2 school. Do you think that K-1 teachers should use the Guided Reading approach while students are mastering foundational skills? Should the teacher be exposing the students to complex text through read alouds? At what point should young learners begin grappling with more complex texts? And, how should primary grade teachers correctly scaffold and support students during this process?

5/21/2012

Good question. You definitely should be reading more complex texts to students in preschool, kindergarten, and grade 1. Children learn language from being read to, and selecting texts that lead the kids a bit intellectually makes sense.

However, do NOT ramp up text difficulty for reading at these ages/reading levels so that kids have a chance to figure out the decoding system.

7/18/2012

I liked this article and found it helpful. Two questions: Is it still true that reading (and rereading) accessible text is important for building fluency, as Richard Allington suggests in his book What Really Matters for Struggling Readers? Second, and also based on Allington's synthesis of the research, what about sheer volume of reading? If students are mostly reading texts that they need my assistance to comprehend, then they are reading many fewer words per day (week, month, year) than if they are mostly reading texts they can access readily, since they can read those on their own both in my class and at home?

7/18/2012

Jody--

Amount of reading must have a positive impact on language and literacy, just as practice in any set of skills seems to help keep those skill sharp and effective. However, despite our field's satisfaction with that idea -- that reading improves reading -- we don't know much about it. We don't know how much practice makes a difference, what kinds of texts make the greatest difference within such practice, or even how to get students to read more on their own.

There have been a number of recent studies suggesting the difficulty of using reading practice to improve reading ability. So, it is not that amount of reading doesn't matter, it is just that we don't have any clear idea on how to accomplish our goals by those means.

My best bet is the way that you get students to read more on their own is to make sure they can read well AND to engage them in interesting uses of literacy in the classroom. The idea of challenging text might open up more opportunities for interesting reading in the classroom.

8/15/2012

I think the key point in this article is that good teaching must occur with more complex texts so that our students learn to become thinkers. Complex text provides the "meat" or opportunity for teaching and learning to occur. My concern is for students with disabilities who have considerable deficits with decoding and fluency who may not be able to read the selected text with 85% accuracy. We have to be able as educators to ensure that these students have access to these lessons through scaffolding and instructional supports. Does anyone know of a document that I could download that addresses specific research based scaffding and supports for SWD and text complexity?

10/23/2012


Thank you for offering an opposing perspective. As an elementary school principal, I admit to drinking the Kool-Aid re: guided reading practices. I also think that you are referring to one piece of reading instruction--not ALL parts of literacy block. I think Allington's "time with text" proposal has a place in a broader scope of teaching reading. So, now that we have a book room full of leveled books (based on F&P Levels), what should I propose to our faculty as a reading practice to take the place of guided reading?
The one caution I've always had with F & P materials is--they have a for-profit investment in the topic. I'm sure you make a profit doing public speaking, writing, etc.. but at least you seem to be advocating for teh common good.

10/23/2012

Mr. Linton--

Thanks. I definitely do not want to get into questioning people's motives (mine included). What happens in any enterprise is that we get locked into our claims and a sensible set of ideas can become rigid.

Back in the 1990s when F&P published their book on guided reading, beginning reading textbooks had become (briefly) hard and teachers weren't sure what to do. Guided reading seemed like a useful antidote to many (me included).

But, in retrospect, when you put all your emphasis on getting kids to the just-right level and almost none on how to you ramp up from there, the teaching suffers.

There is nothing wrong with the F&P materials as far as I know (except possibly too heavily slanted to literature, and their levels, beyond the beginning ones, seem contrived). Those texts could get added to classroom libraries for the "time with text" that you mention. Or, there is no reason that you couldn't get readabilities calculated on those texts and use them in a more dynamic way to start ramping kids up to higher levels. We don't necessarily have to throw out past books, we do have to match them to kids in more thoughtful ways (and that will require that we teach more--helping kids to learn from those harder materials).

10/24/2012

Dr. Shanahan, Would you comment on the efficacy of the Treasures reading curriculum in relation to the CCSS? What criticisms are typically raised and how have these been addressed? I am enjoying the blog. Thank you so much. Dona

10/24/2012

Dona--

Treasures has been a terrific and successful program, but let's be honest. It was not built for the common core. Just like its competitors, its readability levels aren't set high enough to ensure that students will reach the CCSS levels (though adding some text supplements to them can help address that problem), nor does Treasures have an aggressive plan for "stretching" children or raising their levels as they learn. (Of course, there are plenty of things that common core has not changed--such as the strong emphasis on foundational skills instruction and the need to have students reading high quality texts; and there are other features that CCSS has not changed very much, such as the need to include substantial doses of informational text, which reading programs have been increasing steadily throughout the last decade).

So, you definitely can adjust Treasures to make it fit the common core better. But I was very happy that in 2009, while common core was being developed, that we were green lighted on creating a new program to replace Treasures. This new program is not a revision of Treasures, but a completely new program from top to bottom. While everyone else was swapping out some selections, revising some questions, and adding new labels to everything touting their common core readiness, our authors and editors were toiling away on a common core reading program.

Our new program, Wonders, has raised the readability levels of the texts, provided supports for guiding students to succeed with this complexity, included even more informational text, asked more text dependent questions, supported close reading, and increased the amount of writing about reading. Wonders is very common core.

So, if you have an older program, including Treasures, you definitely can get by with it, supplementing it and altering it in various ways to bring it closer to CCSS, but when you're looking for a core program entirely based on CCSS, then take a look at McGraw-Hill's Wonders.

I know readers are skeptical that any programs could truly be common core at this point, and I appreciate it that--the sales people used to call me Dr. No when I was director of reading in Chicago... So don't believe me. But do look for yourself. Compare any new program that claims to be common core (including Wonders) with that company's most recent pre-common-core program; look to see what has changed and how much has changed and you'll see what I mean. Most programs are making the same kinds of adjustments that you may need to make yourself with those older programs.

12/12/2012

Taking into account Krashen's second language theory of Comprehensible Input (i+1), could you pleas address how "challenging" text could be applied to beginning and intermediate high school English language learners.

12/17/2012
Remember Krashen's theory is just that... a theory, and not a terribly well supported one at that. Nevertheless, the idea that learning of a language will be enhanced when the students have the opportunity to figure it out in a communications or learning situation is very appealing. The issue here would be... what constitutes input (comprehensible or otherwise)? If you believe the only input to an English learner is the message in the text, then shifting to more challenging text would be a disaster (as you'd be taking away any opportunity to learn). However, if the input includes that text along with all of the other information being input by the teacher, the other kids, and even the EL child himself/herself, then this isn't that big a stretch. That's why so many of the scholars who actually study the learning of English learners (as opposed to those who just pontificate about it) are so supportive of common core. They believe it increases the possibility for intellectual development of EL students. See
http://ell.stanford.edu/ for a growing body of resources on this.

1/2/2013

What many of you are talking about but in different constructs is instructional support. In a reading recovery lesson, instructional support, or specific teaching points based on careful observation of a student's behaviors while reading continuous text are what increases students' proficiency in reading. Merely using a leveled text is not enough to move students forward. Focused instruction that addresses some aspect of the reading process just beyond the reader's grasp, whether it be decoding, self monitoring or comprehension, and that the reader must get under control in order to move forward is at the crux of effective reading instruction. Hard, instructional, or independent book levels should be understood and used with knowledge and skill. When that happens, students can make excellent progress.

1/2/2013

Karen--

Although Reading Recovery is a fine program, let's remember that it is used to teach beginning reading to strugglers... it is not a terrific model for teaching other more sophisticated aspects of reading -- which is why the research does not support this notion with older students. Thanks.

1/25/2013

Tim,

If I read carefully, I don't see reference to independent reading. Do you see value in leveled books, by any criteria (if so, your take), for independent practice?

1/25/2013

That's a good question, Mark. I think book leveling can be useful both for instructional materials and for independent reading (though not necessarily how we have used them in the past). In a classroom it is useful because it can give a teacher a better sense of how much scaffolding and support is likely to be needed, while for independent reading it can help a teacher guide students to something that may be easy enough to read on one's own--the harder the text, the more motivated and/or supported the student will likely need to be. The problem with this latter recommendation is that it often turns into a prohibition (kids only being allowed to read books at particular levels). Studies show that when students are particularly interested in a book or have a lot of knowledge about what they are reading, their ability to comprehend goes up (in other words "their level" changes). I think such guidance or advice can be helpful, but its limitations can be summarized easily in two words: Harry Potter (a book that was way too hard for many of the kids who read it anyway because they wanted to).

5/1/13

I sincerely appreciate this dialogue. Thank you for providing a forum for such important conversations. These thoughts/questions have been swirling in my head. How exciting to have found all of the input offered here. This second grade teacher is grateful!

7/11/2013

Finally, someone is righting the ship! I have been reading and hearing about Instructional Level Theory for sometime. It goes against my extremely successful 20 years of at risk, urban high school experience. For a 9th grader reading at the 5th grade level, a slew of 6th grade level texts for a year will create a really great 6th grade reader that moves onto the 10th grade. I need my students to grow 2 to 3 years in the year that I have them. The only way that I have found to do this happens is by teaching high school level text.

I wonder if the problem is that in the past literacy for the high school student has not been clearly defined. High school teachers seemed to think that reading tasks are only used for students to glean content, not to teach reasoning and evaluation. If all I want is for my students to explain what happened in a particular battle in the Civil War or what the plot of a novel is, then guided reading and young adult novels is the way to go. Unfortunately, this does not teach a student to read critically. The Common Core seems to right the ship.

In my mind, I see a college student picking up a journal and reading an article. The student puts it down because it is so foreign to him/her. Whoa! This is too hard: long sentences, long paragraphs, no bold face type--long words, too! Where is the prior knowledge bullet? What happened to the vocabulary definition tags? Where is the big idea I am supposed to focus on? What! No guided reading questions? In the real world, a student has to be able to comprehend a text without all the supports teachers give them today. I believe all these supports handicap them in the long run.

So what do I want my students to be able to do? To pick up any type of cold reading and be able to interact with it, make sense of it, evaluate it, compare it to what others say in other venues. I want my students to enter the world of ideas and be able read instructions. I don't want students who simply skim for answers. This means at risk high school students still need to grapple with Ralph Waldo Emerson and all the other high school level texts and then read whatever blows their hair back for fun on the weekends.

I have developed successsful core strategies, or what I call sequences, to teach readers who are significantly behind to engage in high school level text, but I don't see enough of these in the professional literature out there. Wilhelm and Buehl come the closest--but I don't see them connecting the the strategies to participating in the world of ideas like excellent secondary teachers do everyday. Perhaps there needs to be a better marriage between scaffolding strategies and sound unit design.

The leveled instructional texts subject came up in a professional development about competency based instruction today. Allington was referenced for the umpteenth time. I need more research on this issue on the issue of text complexity. Thanks for the start.

9/26/13

Thia is the best discussion on reading instruction that I have ever read online. Thank you to all the contributors. I have had serious qs about leveled reading and this is the first extended discussion that I know of. Would appreciate more links since F and P is so widely used in schools.

12/31/2013

Hello. I am trying to wrap my head around the Common Core and what it means for my students. I teach Grade 3 in an international school, using AERO standards (American Education Reaches Out), which have been aligned with the common core. I have been reading your posts about leveled instructional texts and agree with much of what you have to say. I have also looked at the instructional model of Reading Wonders, which I believe you co-authored, and see that it does, in fact, use leveled texts as a part of the instructional cycle AFTER the entire class has read a complex text with lots of modeling, direct instruction and vocabulary work. Have I got this right? In looking at my literacy block, I am thinking of using two or three thematically related short, complex texts to introduce a theme, model strategies and skills, and teach vocabulary and grammar in context, then release students to leveled groups for small group instruction and independent or paired practice involving text-dependent questions and finding evidence, practicing reading strategies etc. This could be followed by related tasks at the sentence or text level -- using the introductory texts as models. I would love some feedback. Does this seem like a reasonable basic structure?

12/31/2013

You sort of have it right, but not quite. Yes, students are asked to read a series of selections that are at CCSS levels (starting just below the levels specified per grade level and going a bit beyond them by the end of the year). Those selections include guidance to help support students in making sense of those "challenging text selections" so they can read them without being told what they say.

Then there is a follow up with selections more at what has traditionally been thought of as instructional level pieces. However, these small group texts are different versions of the same text. So a student who is asked to read an easier than CCSS level text can use that reading as a scaffold to take on a harder version of the same text (I think of them as stair-steps books--and the idea is that instead of students just reading something at "their level" we are scaffolding the students to take on harder levels of text from that base.

I definitely think it is a good idea to have students reading a variety of texts at a variety of levels. But you also have to think about how will you make it possible for students to handle the harder texts and to stretch them up from the lower ones.

3/9/2014

You are spot on Mr. Shanahan. Great article on "Reading"! I am so with you on this one. Along with reading levels, what also surprises me are the kids menu choices available at restaurant meals. Younger kids can naturally eat what adults eat for survival and growth. Infact at some restaurants I feel that the adult meals are way more healthy and broad spectrum than what is being offered as kids meals. I know I am free to buy whatever I want to for my kids! The baby food industry and kids meal at restaurants are capitalizing on the naivety of newly turned parents. All this fluff about pink themed books/toys/gifts for girls and blue themed for boys is sometimes silly, I am a parent and was never raised with pink books and neither did my brother with blue themed stuff. We were surrounded with gender neutral books and toys. I take pride in this fact that as a parent now, I never raised my daughter with princess themed pink books and my son with devil themed gray/black books. Both my son and daughter are normal, empathetic, curious and wise individuals. May be because I was raised in a foreign country in a different era I never saw media imposed theme designed gender targeted books for kids! The puzzlement with math among girls here is also puzzling to me. Where I grew up the maid servants, vegetable vendors, laborers, milkman, villagers who never set foot in a formal school were innately adept at mental addition/subtraction, never looked puzzled or anxious while calculating. Basic math seemed like one of the known uniform language among common literate or illiterate folks. They did so without paper or pen or smart board or calculator or computers. I urge people not to take my comment personally or nationally, it's just that I grew up in a different part of the world and now that I live here I notice pink themed Dora math and blue themed Thomas the engine math books. I know it's a personal choice and I have personal freedom not to buy one of those books and I never did but, I wanted to share my thoughts somewhere. I feel like one of a kind, my kids out of free will never choose Dora themed pink or blue themed Thomas or red themed Clifford they gravitate towards lofty thoughts and ideals shared by common/great individuals thru their life, books, thoughts and media! Yay! my daughter is comfortable with math and my son is peaceful and sensitive :)

3/11/2014

Kids who read and hear only Dora/Kayu/Thomas the engine/Pooh/Disney-fairy-princess/Clifford the red dog/bookish Arthur/monster themed or other kiddy stuff vocabulary abhor scientific words and their usage. To them it's "uncool" to be using refined vocabulary often found in science books. I observed that as a kid, ourselves growing up in other country, it was seen as a thing of intelligence to be knowing about natural phenomenon and familiarity with related vocabulary. So glad! that my kids are awed and curious about the amazing web of life and are not circumscribed just to aforementioned theme designed only pink, only blue, red, yellow books of the media world :) P.S *This comment is meant only to serve as a bridge between far away interconnected lands and by no means to offend someone personally or nationally*

2/7/15

I am a parent of a 6 year old who is struggling with reading. The school he goes to uses the leveled reading along with the Lucy Calkins method. My son is not engaging because according to him the books he has to read are boring. I've talked to the teacher to see if we can move him up to a higher level, but she says no because he is not 95% accurate. However, it sounds like you would recommend at home using the harder texts he wants to read, and simply helping him with the words he doesn't understand. I don't think I'm going to get the teacher to change the books he is reading at school, but hopefully just working with him at home on harder texts, instead of the texts she sends home he will be better off.

4/24/2015

I am just so confused, as I am a firm believer in the research that Shanahan has discussed in this blog from 2012. However, it is so frustrating to see how many districts have bought 100% into guided reading and F&P. We seem to have more now than since Reading First days. it is hard to find a district in the state of Texas that doesn't do the F&P guided reading. Why???

1/19/2016

I have a concern about the use-well overuse--of the LLI program. I see it being "the" go-to program for all students below level--all year long. We are currently testing Kindergarten students in an effort to put them into an LLI group as soon as possible. Now, this is only for about 40 minutes a day, but now they are also saying they will use it in summer school as well. I just feel like creativity is going out the window as well as meeting individual needs. I am I wrong? I often go rogue about some things so I wonder if it is just me bucking the system if you will.