Heartland AEA Literacy Newsletter

This month hosts NEA's National Read Across America day, the nation’s largest celebration of reading, taking place on March 2. The year-round program focuses on motivating children and teens to read through events, partnerships, and reading resources that are about everyone, for everyone. Use their book and activity suggestions to bring Read Across America to your community.

A separate, but related opportunity is free streaming access to the new documentary film, Right to Read, available March 2nd-9th in celebration of Read Across America day. This film, produced by Reading Rainbow’s Levar Burton, explores the difference between rights and reality in our nation’s schools through the stories of an activist, a teacher, and two American families who fight to provide our youngest generation with the most foundational indicator of life-long success: the ability to read. Click here to register for a link and to get more information about what film creators call “the greatest civil rights issue of our time.”

The Intersection of Equity, Text Complexity, and Reading Comprehension

Reading is a civil rights issue as it is the gateway to learning and life success. All students deserve access to educational opportunities that include talented educators, rigorous coursework, high expectations, and other supports required for social and economic success after high school. Iowa, like most other states, has chosen to implement higher standards that will prepare all students for success after high school by adopting and implementing college-and career-ready standards. These standards place an increasing emphasis on getting students to independently read the range and complexity of texts required to be college, career, and civic ready. The importance of increasing the complexity of texts that students read and the need for teachers to better understand what makes the texts challenging arose out of research that showed nearly half of the students graduating high school need some kind of remediation to cope with the reading required in college and during their careers. The research also showed that the clearest differentiator in reading between students who are and are not college ready is the ability to comprehend complex texts (ACT, 2006).

There is an emphasis on text complexity through Reading standard 10 at every grade level. ​It raises the stakes on what a competent student should be able to demonstrate and do because it demands that all other standards be utilized while reading progressively more complex text. Reading has much more to do with being able to read particular kinds of texts and to deal with particular kinds of text features than to answer particular kinds of questions. The ACT (2006) concluded, for example, that if texts were easy, students could answer any kind of question about them, while with sufficiently complex texts, they couldn’t answer any question types, no matter how simple. The takeaway here is that each text presents information in its own way, and reading comprehension is heavily bound up in the readers’ knowledge of the topic covered by the text.

Reading comprehension is one of the most challenging cognitive activities in which people engage, thus making it difficult to teach. However, there is research to support certain components shown to be important across multiple theoretical models for comprehension that represent potential targets for instruction. Joan Sedita, Keys to Literacy founder and author, explains in her blog post, The Science of Reading Comprehension, “There are many factors that contribute to a student’s ability to comprehend text. Teachers across all grades and subjects need to combine numerous instructional practices to help students build the comprehension strategies, knowledge of text structure, vocabulary, and connections to background knowledge needed to learn from text.”

NWEA makes a makes a case for regular access to grade-level complex text to build proficiency with comprehension, which correlates with equitable outcomes in the blog titled, Let’s Talk Equity: Reading Levels, Scaffolds, and Grade-level Text:

You deny students the right to improve their reading comprehension if you don’t grant them access every day to some meaty grade-level text. Here’s why: Students develop their comprehension—of language, of genres, and of the world—by working with written texts full of challenging words and syntax. They learn new words not by reading words they already know, but by accumulating exposure to new ones. They learn to figure out compound complex sentences, some of them with strange grammatical interruptions like this one, by engaging with these kinds of structures in written text.

Sue Pimentel and Meredith Liben, Student Achievement Partners, postulate in the 2021 report, Reading as Liberation: An Examination of the Research Base that, “grade-level texts and tasks — expertly delivered and supported — are key to ensuring all students meet their potential. To move toward grade-level expectations, educators must provide instruction that keeps students immersed in grade-level reading and thinking, including opportunities to develop and become proficient in the performances described by the standards.”

If a student is not able to read grade-level content then they are behind the expectations. And unless educators can find ways to accelerate those students’ reading achievement, they will be perpetually struggling in their academic achievement which impacts overall achievement outcomes. For more information on reading comprehension, refer to the following resources:

• Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade

• Reading Comprehension Research: Implications for Practice and Policy

• Comprehension Skills or Strategies: Is There a Difference and Does It Matter? Part I

• Where Questioning Fits in Comprehension Instruction: Skills and Strategies Part II

• Comprehension Instruction That Really Helps — Teaching Cohesion

(ACT 2006) Reading between the lines: what the act reveals about college readiness in reading. Iowa City, IA.)

What Makes a Text Complex?

When teachers understand what makes texts complex, they can target scaffolding around features of text complexity in order to grant all students access to complex grade-level text. There is no exact science for determining the complexity of a text. Nor is there a single source of information that can accurately summarize the complexity of the text. Teachers need to use their professional judgment as they take a range of factors into consideration. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) define a three-part model for determining how easy or difficult a particular text is to read as well as grade-by-grade specifications for increasing text complexity in successive years of schooling (Reading standard 10). These are to be used together with grade-specific standards that require increasing sophistication in students’ reading comprehension ability (Reading standards 1–9). The CCSS model of text complexity consists of three interrelated parts: 1) Qualitative dimensions of text complexity, 2) Quantitative dimensions of text complexity and 3) Reader and task considerations. Student Achievement Partners provide a Text Analysis Toolkit on the website www.achievethecore.org that aims to support educators in the process of selecting and analyzing texts based on complexity and cultural relevance.

Timothy Shanahan, literacy researcher and expert, along with co authors Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey, expand on the CCSS’ model of text complexity in the ASCD publication, The Challenge of Challenging Texts, where they home in on five factors that help determine text complexity: vocabulary, sentence structure, coherence, organization, and background knowledge. The authors assert that teachers should not shrink from requiring their students to tackle complex text; rather, they should support students in mastering such text by building vocabulary and fluency, establishing a purpose for reading, and fostering motivation and persistence.

Help Students Develop Their Ability to Learn from Complex Texts

Students who gain access to complexity and knowledge-building through multiple gateways of fluency instruction are more likely to be proficient readers. David Liben, nationally-recognized reading expert, explains in Achieve the Core’s Peers and Pedagogy Three-Part Blog on Fluency that fluency does not guarantee comprehension, but a lack of fluency guarantees almost all the time a lack of comprehension, especially with more complex texts. ​Liben’s research-based philosophy is that students need to use complex text to build fluency rather than leveled or lower leveled texts. There is also a wealth of research that shows students have more than one level depending on their background knowledge. Liben, and his wife Meredith, who is also a literacy expert, founded the organization Reading Done Right and offers under the “Resources” tab free access to useful tools, articles, and research related to fluency and beyond. See also the items listed below for more fluency resources:

• Timothy Rasinski on Fluency and Equity in Reading Instruction

• Increasing Reading Fluency for Middle and High School Students

The Role of Close Reading

The CCSS emphasize close reading of complex text in the disciplines to build a foundation for college and career readiness. Close reading is a process of careful, analytical reading that involves repeated reading, text-based discussion and often written analysis of complex text. This practice provides students the opportunity to learn the skills they need to navigate complex texts. When educators commit to equity and excellence for all students, they don't rescue students who struggle. ​A good close read is designed so that productive struggle and success are interwoven through intentional, built-in scaffolds determined by where in the text students will likely struggle. Search "Close Reading" on Achievethecore.org for support in preparing, implementing, and assessing close reading lessons. For additional resources in supporting all learners with grade-level, complex text refer to the list below:

• Shifting Perspectives About High-interest, Low-level Texts

• Finding and Teaching The Complexity In Read-Aloud Texts

• Helping English Learners Rise to the Challenge of Complex Texts

• Supporting All Learners with Complex Text

• Placing Text at the Center of the Standards-Aligned ELA Classroom

Self-regulated reading is a process by which students manage their reading and
comprehension. Students do this through awareness and regulation of their thoughts,
knowledge, and actions to read and understand complex texts.
Self-regulated readers apply strategies purposefully to understand text content, connect
information with prior knowledge, check their understanding, and regulate their motivation

(Kintsch, 2009; Massey, 2009). Self-regulated reading involves readers planning, executing, and controlling their actions and thoughts related to reading text.

Why does self-regulated reading matter?

As students get older, they are exposed to more complex texts. Specifically, students are
expected to read considerably more expository text than in elementary school. Additionally,
they are expected to do more independent reading. Thus, students need to be prepared
to read independently and self-regulate. Unfortunately, research has shown that many
middle and high school students do not use self-regulation strategies while reading and lack
awareness of the reading process (Mateos et al., 2008). Teaching self-regulation strategies in
combination with reading strategies (e.g., finding the main idea) helps to prepare students
to adapt and modify their reading goals and behaviors to meet the task at hand (Perry et al.,
2003).

Additionally, extensive research shows that teaching self-regulation in combination with
strategy use results in better learning than strategy instruction alone (e.g., De Corte et al.,
2011; Graham et al., 2005). Further, struggling readers report using significantly fewer self-regulation strategies compared to nonstruggling readers (Denton et al., 2015). Thus, students
benefit from being taught how to self-regulate and being taught strategies to understand
text.

Tier 2 is preventive intervention offered to students who fall behind, who demonstrate difficulty based on screening measures, or who make weak progress from regular classroom instruction. Instruction in tier 2 must be targeted to the underlying difficulty(s) impacting the students' progress in literacy. Students in tier 2 receive supplemental ("in addition to") small group instruction. Importantly, this instruction should be systematic, explicit, and highly interactive. Progress-monitoring data should be used to group students periodically. Students who demonstrate improvement and exit from tier 2 support should be carefully monitored to ensure that general classroom instruction is adequate. In many studies, effective tier 2 intervention has been shown to reduce or eliminate reading difficulties in the early elementary grades (Gersten et al, 2017 ).

Here are some additional resources regarding best practices for literacy interventions:

Evidence-based Literacy Interventions: Tier 2 and 3

This Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest webinar provided early childhood (PreK – grade 3) educators with effective strategies to help students develop reading skills efficiently during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Literacy experts shared evidence-based strategies that educators can incorporate into their summer and/or end-of-year planning to support students during the 2021/22 school year. In addition, early childhood practitioners presented several strategies they plan to use to support early literacy instruction. Speakers: • Jill Bowdon, PhD, senior researcher, REL Midwest • Nell Duke, EdD, professor, Literacy, Language, and Culture Combined Program in Education and Psychology, University of Michigan • Laura Justice, PhD, distinguished professor of educational psychology, Ohio State University • Laurie Lee, EdD, Improving Literacy Research Alliance manager, REL Southeast • Shelia Boozer, director of teaching and learning, Springfield Public Schools • Debbie Thomas, literacy/social studies/library coordinator, Springfield Public Schools

Core and Supplemental English as a Second Language Literacy Instruction for English Learners

This document is the third in a series of briefs for school leaders, educators, and policymakers charged with implementing or supporting multitiered instruction that accommodates English learners (ELs). In this brief, three model demonstration projects (Cohort 5 of the Model Demonstration Coordination Center—see sidebar) share their framework for the successful design and delivery of core and supplemental literacy instruction for kindergarten to grade 3 ELs who receive literacy instruction in English only. This brief provides guidance to educators in preparing and delivering English instruction for ELs and in framing supports for classroom teachers that ensure culturally and linguistically responsive core and supplemental English literacy instruction.

Evidence-Based Tier 2 Interventions for English Learners Grades 3-5

When implemented effectively, multi-tiered instructional frameworks support educators in providing high-quality culturally and linguistically responsive instruction for English learners, including those in need of supplemental instruction in language and literacy. Further, when a multi-tiered system of supports includes assessment procedures that are linguistically aligned and informed by educators’ knowledge of the language-acquisition process, students with disabilities are accurately identified. In this second brief in the series, three model demonstration projects describe their work implementing multi-tiered instructional models for English learners with and without disabilities in grades 3 to 5 and introduce key issues to consider. This is the second brief in the series Meeting the Needs of English Learners With and Without Disabilities. It features the work of three model demonstration projects
whose interventions support the language and literacy needs of English learners (ELs) in grades 3–5, specifically through supplemental intervention (Tier 2) that is culturally and linguistically responsive.

Lesson Instruction Guides for Phonological Awareness, Letter Knowledge and Phonics, Fluency and Decoding and Spelling

Provided below are instructional materials developed by staff at the Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia. These materials are available for teachers to use to support their efforts to deliver effective literacy instruction to their students. These materials may be of value to parents who are providing instruction to their children.

SERP designers work directly with leading researchers to create products that address specific challenges in K-12 schools that have been identified by practitioners. Solutions emerge through an iterative design process that carefully considers learning outcomes, support for teachers, student agency, and equitable access. Here are summaries of current free literacy resources.

WordGen Weekly (Grades 6-8)

Word Generation emphasizes 21st century learning goals, such as using academic language, developing an argument, reasoning analytically, reading to find evidence, reviewing data, discussing various perspectives, engaging in debate, and expressing well-reasoned positions in writing. WordGen Weekly uses compelling topics to engage middle school students in meaningful academic language development work with all their content-area teachers Specifically, this interdisciplinary program:

• Expands general and content-oriented academic vocabulary.

• Builds the reasoning and argumentation skills that are necessary for learning in all content areas.
• Builds reading comprehension and content-area literacy by providing students with motivating text, opportunities for discussion and debate, and weekly writing.
• Sets students on a path to college and career readiness by providing multiple perspectives on complex problems, and requiring that students sift through evidence that supports or contradicts particular perspectives.

Basic Facts about WordGen Weekly:

Series/units can be used in any order

Three “series” (years) of materials, with 24 one-week units per series

Units focus on a social or civic dilemma

Five connected 15-20 minutes activities for ELA, math, science and social studies.

Five academic "focus words" emphasized per week

Aligned to Common Core State Standards

WordGen Elementary (Grades 4-5)

WordGen for Grades 4 and 5 is comprised of twelve two-week units, with 40-50 minute lessons each day. It expands students’ background knowledge and academic vocabulary, while emphasizing 21st century learning practices such as argumentation, analytic reasoning, perspective taking, reading to find evidence, oral discussion, and writing. Each unit introduces approximately five or six high-utility academic “focus words” and is designed to offer a variety of texts, word-learning activities, writing tasks, and debate and/or discussion opportunities. Each unit begins with a video newscast and a "Reader's Theater" that introduces multiple perspectives on a high-interest topic.Students read, discuss, debate, and write about each topic, using the focus words.

Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI) Grades 6-9

STARI is a literature-focused, Tier II intervention for students in grades 6-9 who read two or more years below grade level. By the time students reach the middle grades, they are expected to read to learn instead of learn to read. But for the significant number of students who cannot decode or fluently read more complex text, this shift spells trouble. In addition, older students who need targeted, intensive reading instruction are still adolescent thinkers! They do not find typical remedial materials for engaging. Using research-based practices and highly engaging texts, STARI addresses gaps in fluency, decoding, reading stamina and comprehension, aiming to move struggling students to higher levels of proficiency in one year. STARI actively engages students in discussions of cognitively challenging content aligned to the Common Core and other 21st century standards.

STARI is intended to be a “double dose” intervention that should not take the place of core curriculum. We recommend that schools devote either 45-60 minutes, 5 days a week, or 90 minutes on an A-day/B-day schedule, to STARI.

We are excited to share the following literacy courses to deepen your understanding of evidence-based instructional practices to impact student learning in the areas of reading and writing. We will continue to add courses through the spring for summer and will update this list.