English Language Arts Six Instructional Shifts Focus on Shift 3 Staircase of text complexity - Qualitative Measures

 Shift 1: Balance of literature and informational text  Shift 2: Literacy across all content areas (6-12)  Shift 3: Staircase of text complexity  Shift 4: Question and Answers: text-dependent  Shift 5: Writing to inform or argue using evidences  Shift 6: Academic Vocabulary

One of the key requirements of the Common Core State Standards for Reading is that all students must be able to comprehend texts of steadily increasing complexity as they progress through school. By the time they complete high school students must be able to read and comprehend independently and proficiently the kinds of complex texts commonly found in college and careers.

Involves an attentive teacher making an informed decision (professional judgment) regarding the difficulty of a text. Consideration of qualitative factors is crucial because quantitative measures cannot fully capture all the nuances regarding the difficulty of a text. Qualitative factors lie on a continuum of difficulty and therefore cannot be reduced to a score, but rather inform educators whether the initial grade band placement via the quantitative factors is correct or should be revised.

Meaning/Purpose: single versus multiple levels of meaning/purpose Knowledge Demands: few versus many assumptions about a reader’s life experiences Language Features: literal/conversational versus figurative/domain-specific vocabulary Text Structure: conventional/chronological versus unconventional structures Visual Supports: heavy or light use of graphics depending on the type of text

Practice: Examine the rubrics to determine the qualitative measures of one literary text and one informational text you use for classroom instruction.

How do I use this process as part of my instructional practice? Complex Text and Its Implications in the Classroom (2:00) Tim Shanahan delves into the instructional implications of anchor Reading Standard dL1AuuE93M