1. ELA NC Check-In Instructional Support
Exploring Text Complexity
ELA NC Check-In Instructional Support
Welcome to Exploring Text Complexity.
NCDPI ELA Section
May 2018

2. Purpose of the PPT Series
The NCDPI ELA Section’s role in the NC Check-Ins is to provide the participating teachers with instructional support.
Any questions regarding instruction may be directed to Julie Joslin.
Any questions regarding interim assessment may be directed to Dan Auman.
Instructional Support includes:
resources that could provide clarity around the standards, ideas for teaching using an integrated model, creating aligned teacher-made assessments, the role of text complexity, and supports for planning lessons.

3. Instructional Support Powerpoints
Topic(s)
Part One
Standards
Part Two
Text Complexity
Part Three
Frequently Asked Questions

4. Considering its role in instruction
Why Text Complexity?
Considering its role in instruction
“While I was in the classroom, I loved to teach my favorite novel, Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman. I loved it and the students loved it. While planning my instruction, I always wanted to begin the year with this book. My reasons for doing so were based on the fact that it was an enjoyable book to study. I did not take into consideration that it may not have been an appropriate time of the year based on the complexity of the text and my students. When I investigated the complexity of this novel, I discovered that it was very challenging. It is important part of instructional planning is determining the complexity of a text and considering the needs of your students.”
So, while planning, it is important to always ask ourselves, “Is this the right book to be teaching at this time?” Text complexity is a piece of deliberate instruction.
This ppt will focus on the measures of text complexity and instructional scaffolds to support students grappling with complex text.
Although the same Standards are assessed on each interim assessment…. The complexity of the selections will increase just as it increases in your classroom.

5. Quantitative Measure Lexile: Sentence length Word length
Sentence structure
It is determined by a formula.
It represents ONE dimension of text complexity.
The quantitative measure is one part of the overall measure of complexity.
There are several different quantitative measures but in NC, Lexile is what most schools use.
A Lexile measure includes: sentence length, word length, and sentence structure.
It is a number determined by a formula. A Lexile number is an average for an entire text though the Lexile measure can vary within the text and even within a chapter.
It’s always important to remember while planning that the quantitative measure (the Lexile), represents one dimension of text complexity.

6. Lexile Text Complexity Grade Bands and Associated Ranges
The Lexile Framework
2nd to 3rd Grade
4th to 5th Grade
6th to 8th Grade
9th to 10th Grade
11th to CCR
It is important to note that the Lexiles cover a range and overlap at the high and low ends. For example, look at the low end of 6th grade – Notice that it is also included at the high end of the 5th grade range.

7. Lexile Analyzer
This is the Lexile analyzer. It allows you to input a piece of text for a Lexile measure. You can also do a quick book search for titles.
This is linked here and on the Wiki.

8. Qualitative Measure Meaning Text Structure Language Features
Knowledge Demands
Another part of text complexity is the qualitative measure. This measure includes: meaning, text structure, language features, and knowledge demands.

9. Reader and Task Questions to Consider……
What aspects of the text will likely pose the most
challenge for my students?
Content or theme concerns or challenges?
Text structure challenges?
Language feature challenges?
Knowledge and experience demands?
Motivation for and interest in the text?
Within instruction, reader and task considerations can definitely impact the use of a text within a lesson and provide scaffolds for instruction. Often overlooked, the reader and task consideration is an important measure for instruction. With this measure, you look at your current class, what you know about them, what you know about the text, and then make decisions.
The slide shows some questions that you will ask yourself as you closely read the text that you are planning to use with your students. Take a moment to read some of the questions to consider. To learn more about Reader and Task considerations, visit our Text Complexity wikipage.
How do I collect all of this information - the quantitative measure, the qualitative measure, and reader and task considerations?

10. Can be found on our text complexity wiki page

11. Supporting Students in Productive Struggle with Complex Text
Make scaffolding a seamless part of your instruction!
It’s important that all students be given the opportunity to read and interact with complex texts. Text complexity is central to learning the standards.
Specific cognitive skills have to be executed, but with texts that are sufficiently challenging. Being able to meet the standards with relatively easier text is NOT meeting the standards.
So how do we help students struggle productively with complex texts?
This is where scaffolding becomes an important, seamless part of planning and teaching, as well as learning. Scaffolding is how we help ALL students access the complex texts. We want learning to be personalized, which can sometimes be tricky! When planning to teach a complex text, teachers need to read the text closely prior to instruction in order to understand what obstacles students might face and when. This will help you build in appropriate scaffolds and supports.
Guiding students to read text with support is like spotting for someone during weight lifting (you have to be careful not to do the exercise for them and you have to avoid dependence)
Do not always head off the challenges, but always be ready to respond and support
Let’s look at a few ways to scaffold.

12. Five Ways to Scaffold Complex Text
Deconstructing and Reconstructing Complex Sentences
Triggering Motivation
Stair-step Texts
Vocabulary Activities
Building Knowledge and Accessing Prior Knowledge
Here are five ways to scaffold complex texts. The following activities can help open the door for students who are struggling with aspects of the text (such as sentence structure, grammar, vocabulary, fluency, knowledge demands, etc.)

13. Guide students to deconstruct/reconstruct complex sentences
Use with complex sentences that are particularly long sentences, sentences with internal punctuation, dependent clauses, parentheticals, passive sentences, etc.
Deconstruct (chunk the sentence into parts)
Discuss the meaning of the chunks
Reconstruct
Complex texts will be full of complex sentences. Complex sentences are particularly long sentences, sentences with internal punctuation, dependent clauses, parentheticals, passive sentences, etc. They are sentences with a lot going on. These sentences can be difficult for students to deconstruct and understand.
How can students make sense of the complex sentences? First have students deconstruct or chunk the sentence. As they deconstruct, they make notes or annotate by paraphrasing what they chunked. After they have deconstructed and paraphrased in their own words, they discuss the pieces and meanings of the chunks. This can be done a number of ways – partner, small group, etc. Finally, you want to be sure that students reconstruct that sentence. It’s important not to leave the sentences deconstructed. In order to help build the vocabulary and help students understand complex texts, students need to look at the chunks and paraphrase within the context of the passage. Students should link their paraphrasing to the original sentence so that comprehension is reached. Have a student read the sentence again and explain what it means. They use their paraphrasing and the original sentence/words to explain the meaning.

14. Complex Sentence “However, on August 24, 2006, the International
Astronomical Union (IAU), a group of individual
astronomers and astronomical societies from
around the world, made an announcement.”
However,
on August
the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a group of individual astronomers and astronomical societies from around the world
made
an announcement.
Here is an example of a complex sentence that has quite a bit of punctuation. (Click to show deconstruction.) This is an example of one way to deconstruct this sentence.

15. Triggering Motivation
Allow students to explore interests.
Choose texts that speak to student passions.
The higher the motivation, the higher the engagement.
Allow for student choice.

16. Stair-step Texts
Texts can be hard because students lack sufficient background knowledge.
If students have multiple texts on the same topic that are at different difficulty levels,
The “stair-step” texts can help students build background knowledge for the more complex ones.
The overlap in important information should increase the likelihood that students will pay attention to it.
A student’s ability to independently deal with the information in the hard text should increase.
Complex texts can sometimes inhibit comprehension because of a student’s lack of background knowledge about the topic or content. By using stair-step texts as part of a text set, students build the knowledge needed to understand the grade level complex text that you are using for instruction. Using stair step texts is not a substitute of that rich grade level text. These texts help students access the more complex text by providing background knowledge and vocabulary knowledge. Like the name states, these texts help students continue up the staircase to the top which is that complex text.

17. Vocabulary Support Reading should stimulate growth in vocabulary!
Focus on words that make a difference in comprehending the text.
Pre-teach words that are not explicitly defined in the text.
Pre-teach words that cannot be figured out from context.
Provide minimal prior instruction.
Reading should stimulate growth in vocabulary!
A very common problem in reading a complex text is a student saying, “I don’t know the words”. If students do not understand the meaning of the vocabulary, then their comprehension will lack. When scaffolding, be sure to focus on words that will affect comprehension. There is no reason to scaffold and spend time on words that are either defined in the text or can be understood through context. Pre-teaching vocabulary can improve a readers’ reading comprehension but do not overdo pre-teaching of vocabulary and always focus on the right words.

18. Time and Attention More Time Less Time Abstract Words
Words which are parts of semantic word families (develop, developed, developer, development)
Words which represent an idea, event, concept unfamiliar to students
Words likely to appear in future texts students will read
Concrete Words
Words not part of semantic word family and have single meanings (sofa, gregarious)
Words which are synonyms for ideas, or concepts students already know
Typically there are many Tier 2 words in a text, which means teachers have to choose which words to teach. Since academic vocabulary is vital to the understanding of a complex text, words to scaffold and spend time on should be carefully selected. So how do we know which words to spend time on? This slide shows some guidelines to keep in mind while planning a lesson and choosing words to scaffold. You may need extra supports in place for words that are abstract, that are part of word families, that represent an idea or concept that is unfamiliar to the students, and/or words that are likely to appear in future texts. Less supports may be needed for words that are concrete, not part of word families, and/or are synonyms for familiar ideas and concepts.

19. This is a great tool in the decision making of which words to teach
This is a great tool in the decision making of which words to teach. It is linked here and on our wiki.

20. Vocabulary Support Activities
Word Charades
Chain Links
Morphology
Now that the words have been chosen, how do you scaffold for students who need extra support with those vocab words?
Research emphasizes that vocabulary development is a vital part of all content learning. The link between vocabulary knowledge and comprehension is undeniable. While wide reading increases a student’s vocabulary significantly, direct and explicit instruction in vocabulary must also occur daily in all classrooms.
Students enter school with vastly different levels of word knowledge. Because research shows that having students look up words and write definitions is the least effective way to increase their vocabulary…. here are three strategies to embed into instruction.
Word Charades Students work in a small group to act out a word while the rest of the class guesses.
Chain Link… Have students wear vocabulary lanyards or sticky notes. Select one student to stand in front of the class, pronounce the word and say its meaning. The rest of the class thinks of a way to make a connection between their word and the first student's word.  When some hands are raised, call on a student to explain his or her link. If it makes sense, that student gets to join the first child and link elbows. The next student can link his or her word with either the first or second vocabulary term. Continue until all the children are linked up. For an added challenge, try to link the first and last words!
Chain Link builds student’s vocabulary bank by….. Including synonyms and antonyms in rigorous vocabulary study. First, it expands knowledge  - they are really learning FIVE or more words, not just one. Second, it deepens understanding - by learning what the word is NOT, they develop a clearer concept of what the word IS.
Morphology…. The ability to use and understand prefixes, suffixes, inflectional endings, and Greek & Latin roots will help children "unlock" the secrets of more sophisticated words.   After some background building, your students can work with you to dig deep into a longer word by breaking it up into its parts
These activities are from Words Nerds – a great book of activities that support students’ love of words.

21. Building Background Knowledge & Accessing Prior Knowledge
Builds a reservoir of knowledge for students to access when needed
Important for all types of texts
Can “unlock” complex text
Not all students have the same background/prior knowledge needed to comprehend a text

22. Practice Scaffolding within a Close Read
Remember, when practicing a close read:
use a small section of larger text.
choose grade-level text.
choose complex text.
use the same text with all students.
We have just shared five ways of scaffolding complex texts. There are many more. You can practice scaffolding within a close read of complex text in order to build those habits.
There will be parts of a chapter and/or text that will be more difficult than others. Knowing the text and where these parts occur allows teachers to decide where and what to closely read and also how to scaffold.
Close reading is a time when all students are interacting with a small section of a grade level, complex text. Not all students will be able to access that text without supports or scaffolds. There are also times and situations where close reading would not be appropriate such as when using a simple text or section of text. Knowing when to practice close reading and when to scaffold is an important piece of instructional planning so reading the text carefully to find complex parts prior to instruction is critical. For more information on close reading, you can visit our ELA Resources LiveBinder from our wiki.

23. From Achieve
This is an exemplar lesson with strong scaffolds found on Achieve’s EQuIP website. The image is hyperlinked. We have also added the document and link on our wiki. In this 6th grade lesson by Odell Education, students are asked to read and interact with Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement speech.
The lesson shows how you can scaffold more complex sections of texts by using text dependent questions during independent reading and teacher read aloud.

24. From Achieve
Notice that the scaffolding is within instruction and not a separate list of to-dos. In this lesson, students are asked to independently read the text with text dependent questions to guide them. Next, they follow along and listen as the teacher reads the text aloud. These two built-in scaffolds are a seamless part of instruction. Students are reading and working with complex text through purposeful repetitions, text dependent questions, and teacher read aloud.
As an additional note, this lesson has a targeted standard and supporting standards as a reminder of the importance of integration. Notice that its targeted standard is one of the standards assessed on NC Check-Ins. For more information on standards and integration, refer to the Part I ppt. The ppt and notes are uploaded on our wiki. Image is linked. The entire lesson is linked on our wiki.

25. This is an exemplar lesson with strong scaffolds found on Achieve’s EQuIP website. The image is hyperlinked. We have also added the document and link on the wiki.
The lesson shows how you can scaffold more complex sections of texts by using text dependent questions during independent reading and teacher read aloud.

26. For more information on standards and integration, refer to the Part I ppt. The ppt and notes are uploaded on our wiki. Image is linked. The entire lesson is linked on the wiki.

27. NCDPI ELA's Text Complexity Wikipage
This is the go-to site for learning about text complexity. Click here to access this page.

28. Designing Aligned Instruction: Lesson Planning
This Canvas course takes the user step-by-step through a process to create aligned lessons.  
Canvas Course: 

29. Other Resources David Liben – Vocabulary and the Common Core
Tim Shanahan – Learning from Challenging Texts
ELA Resources LiveBinder
NCDPI ELA Wiki
The four linked sources on the slide are helpful resources for your work.

30. ? Do you have questions regarding the information in the Powerpoint?
Please send them to and a member of our team will reply as soon as possible!
As always, please let us know how we can support you! ?

31. Check out Part Three!