Here is an interview that I did recently that you might find interesting.
http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5-uhmwsD6Y&NR=1
Please note on the YouTube page that opens, there are some other interviews about common core with Jan Hasbrouck, Vicki Gibson, and Jana Echevarria. Good luck.
Friday, September 30, 2011
More on Text Complexity and Common Core
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7 comments:
My exploration of text complexity and common core standards has now brought me to Lexile scores/ranges. One of the assessments our school uses provides Lexile ranges for each student. Are Lexiles a good thing? Should I be using them to help students find books at their level and to analyze the text passages I use in my reading instruction? Or, do you think this is heading in the wrong direction?
Angela--
Lexiles are terrific. A very useful tool, and I would pay a lot of attention to those ranges. Lexiles are able to explain about 80% of the variance in reading comprehension, which is much better than other readability formulas.
But as good as Lexiles are all they provide is a good estimate of which kids could likely read these texts with comprehension. They don't tell you the best level to teach children at, and they don't even tell you whether you should avoid a book or just beef up your scaffolding.
Also, Lexiles are not perfect. Yes, they usually give good, useful, sound information, but some percentage of time they do not (every assessment has some error associated with it). So, according to Lexiles a given book may be appropriate for fifth graders(and they analyze the sentence complexity and the rareness of the vocabulary words). And, while that scheme usually works, let's say that you have a text that presupposes particular background experiences or emotional awareness that is uncommon for fifth graders (so the words were common and the sentences simple, but the ideas were abstract and beyond the students' maturity level). In such a case, even though the Lexile says fifth grade, I might either choose to not use the book with these kids or I might see that my kids are going to find the "reading" easy and interpretation hard, perhaps I'll use it and scaffold it differently.
Hope that makes sense.
Thank you for the information on Lexiles. Would you share your opinion on another topic?
A colleague and I are reviewing our middle school remedial reading program to ensure all of the skills and strategies we use are evidence-based. Naturally, we have found an overwhelming amount of information from a variety of academic databases, reading journals, etc. about what constitutes best practice in the teaching of comprehension.
1) What are the top five or ten evidence-based skills/strategies that absolutely MUST be included in a middle school remedial reading program?
2) Would you recommend any websites or resources that compile information about which skills/strategies are most evidence-based? In particular, we are looking for a way to search for a skill or strategy by name (ex: summarizing) and find information on its evidence base.
3) Are the skills/strategies promoted in reading journals (such as the Reading Teacher) considered 'evidence-based' - or are there merely skills/strategies that have been researched?
Thank you.
The U.S. government required a review of research about a decade ago (the National Reading Panel Report) and it provides some of the kind of information that you ask for. You can find a link to that report on my site (www.shanahanonliteracy.com) . Also, you would be wise to go to the What Works Clearinghouse, as they review research studies on intervention programs aimed at students in these grade levels. And my wife produced a guide on the selection of intervention programs that could help you
http://www.learningpt.org/literacy/adolescent/intervention.pdf
Hello Dr. Shanahan,
I am finalizing my presentation for the National Title 1 Conference, entitled, "Marrying Rigor and Passion in Reading Comprehension". I'm wondering if I have your permission to quote you on a summary of the CCS that I read in a power point presentation of yours. In the presentation(which I read), you succinctly described the key CCR standards by stating: Key Ideas & Details standards primarily focus on "What did the author say?"; Craft & Structure standards focus on "How did the author say it?"; Integration = How do I evaluate what the author has told me? I think this is such a memorable way to distill the standards, that I'm hoping I can quote you on this. Would that be okay?
Many thanks,
Rebecca Beck
Yes, please feel free to use this material. It is always polite to cite the source, but otherwise you and other readers can feel free to use my stuff.
Thanks and god luck with our presentation.
Thanks so much! I'll be sure and cite you as my source.
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