20 Strategies

to Help Your Students Master

Complex Text

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High School vs. College

K12 Schooling: Declining Complexity of Texts and a Lack of Reading of Complex Texts Independently Gary L. Williamson (2006) found a 350 Lexile gap between the difficulty of end-of-high school and

college textsa gap equivalent to 1.5 standard deviations and more than the Lexile difference between grade 4 and grade 8 texts on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Source: http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_A.pdf

For the first time in a standards document, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has a standardStandard 10devoted solely to ensuring that students increase ability to read complex texts.

What Gets Tested Gets Taught

Strategy One: Read Aloud

What do you read aloud to your students?

Strategy Two: Increase Exposure to Expository Text

Strategy Three: Pair fiction

with nonfiction.

AIRHOPE, Ala. During the Great Depression, there were hardly any jobs in the United States and many people were broke. Young people throughout the South snuck onto trains looking for work. In 1931, nine black teenagers, a few white boys and two white girls got on a train to Memphis. A fight started and the outnumbered white boys jumped off the train. They went to the police. In Paint Rock, Ala., officers boarded the train. They arrested every black male, ranging from 13 to 19 years old. They also found the two white girls. The girls said they had been attacked by the black boys. The boys had not committed the crime. But a jury said they did. All but the youngest was sentenced to die. The teenagers became known as the Scottsboro Boys. It was an ugly chapter in Alabama history. The boys got legal help to fight their charges. One of the women who accused the boys admitted her story was not true. But the damage had been done. They boys' reputations were ruined. Some went into hiding. Eventually they all died. Source: www.newsela.com

Strategy Four-Nine Teach Comprehension Skills

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I say summarize; you say shorten. Summarize.

Shorten. Summarize.

Shorten.

When Summarizing Look For:

the WHO.

the WHAT.

the WHEN.

the WHERE.

the WHY.

H O W .

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Strategy Ten Increase Conversations

Reading Groups with Structure Read Summarize Question Answer

Strategy Eleven: Teach with Souvenirs

Strategy Twelve: Teach Main Idea

Strategy Thirteen: Increase Questioning Skills

Strategy Fourteen: VAK

Strategy Fifteen: Rivet

Rivet f u r

ma t

s t u b b o r n Source: The Four Blocks

Strategy Sixteen: Guess the Covered Word

Source: The Four Blocks

Guess the

Covered Word Glaciers: Natures Icy Caps Written by: David L. Harrison Illustrated by: Cheryl Nathan

Published by: Boyds Mill Press

A glacier thousands of feet thick weighs millions of tons. Its mighty force gouges valleys deeper and wider. It flattens forests and grinds boulders into powder. As the glacier creaks along, it polishes stone and leaves deep grooves like marks of monster claws.

Strategy Seventeen: ABCbox

Alphabox Vocabulary

A B C D

E

F G H

I

J K L

M

N O P

Q

R S T

U

V W XYZ

Strategy Seventeen: Teach Grammar Through Writing

Strategy Eighteen: Text Structure for Cause/Effect

CAUSE EFFECT

Jimmys boa constrictor scared the hens. Jimmy took his boa into the hen house to meet the farm animals.

Jimmy took his boa into the hen house to meet the farm animals.

Jimmys boa constrictor scared the hens.

Strategy Nineteen: Simplify Text

You ever hear of a jazz-playin man, the man with the cats who could swing with his band? He was born in 1899, in Washington, D.C. Born Edward Kennedy Ellington. But wherever young Edward went, he said, Hey, call me Duke.

Turn complex text into simple text.

Strategy Twenty: Sentence Variety

Sentence Variety

Subject first Adjectives first Adverbs first Adverbial phrase Compound sentence Short sentence Gerund phrase Transitional phrase Participial phrase Prepositional phrase Subordinate clause