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Understanding Rigor in Reading: Text Complexity and Supported Struggle

Understanding Rigor in Reading: Text Complexity and Supported Struggle. Agenda. Slideshow/Discussion: (turn/talk > lecture) What makes a text difficult? Formal (and informal) measures of readability and text complexity Workshop/Discussion: (Discussion Web)

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Understanding Rigor in Reading: Text Complexity and Supported Struggle

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  1. Understanding Rigor in Reading: Text Complexity and Supported Struggle

  2. Agenda • Slideshow/Discussion: (turn/talk > lecture) • What makes a text difficult? • Formal (and informal) measures of readability and text complexity • Workshop/Discussion: (Discussion Web) • Students should read challenging (complex) texts in their content area on a regular basis • Activity (if time): Noticing Good Teaching with “Supported Struggle” • Homework: Qualitative Aspects of Text Complexity

  3. Defining Text Complexity – Four Factors Common Core Standards • HUMAN RATED • Levels of meaning • Structure • Language conventionality • Clarity • Knowledge demands • COMPUTER SCORED • Word length • Word frequency • Sentence length • Text Cohesion • Co-Metrix and Lexiles • READER • Motivation • Knowledge • Experiences • TASK • Purpose/Context • Complexity • Questions Posed

  4. What makes a text difficult?(Turn and talk…) • X

  5. What makes a text difficult (or complex)?(Turn and talk…) • According to Fisher & Fry… • Writing style (formality, genre, historical time, language, literature features) • Content (vocabulary; assumptions about prior knowledge) • Text Structure: arrangement of ideas (narrative/expos) • Coherence: logical connections & explained • Sentence Complexity (coreference/coherence) • Unity: sticks to the topic • Audience Appropriateness: match target reader PK • Themes and Ideas: easy texts, but big ideas • Purpose/Task: (for pleasure or to analyze)

  6. What makes a text difficult? • According to Buehl (Ch. 2) • Relationships between ideas (straightforward vs. need to make inferences; single vs. multiple perspectives) • Richness of detail: more details; multiple forms and media to move back and forth between “some assembly required for comprehension”; reader should expect to make intertextual connections • Text structure: explicit with signals vs. implicit structures with multiple logical relationships • Writing style: bricks (concepts) & mortar (connector words) • Vocabulary density: technical and disciplinary concepts • Author purpose: “Why is the author telling me this?”

  7. What makes a text difficult? • Disciplinary Discourses (Buehl, Ch. 2)

  8. Determining Appropriate Leveled Texts for Readers… • Goldilocks Method – 5 fingers, too hard • Oral reading (decode vs. comprehend) but…

  9. Understanding readability • The estimated reading level is “the break-off point” (or a student’s limit)! • Readability formulas are linked to a 50% correct answer score on a comprehension test (Johnson, 2005). • So, if a book has a reading level of 14 years, an average 14-year old pupil would score only 50% on a test of comprehension! • For a student to read independently (without help, but with comprehension), the reading level of the text should be 2 years below the students’ reading level!

  10. What are some more formal ways of determining/calculating readability??TURN AND TALK

  11. How is readability determined? • Word difficulty is determined by… • COUNTYING SYLLABLES & SENTENCE LENGTH • Fry Readability: sentence length & syllables [Grades 1-12] [Do this by hand] • Flesh-Kinkaid: sentence length & syllables [How many years of schooling to understand the content … 0-12] - Use Microsoft Word (Tools: Options: Spelling) • Gunning-Fox Index: sentence length & difficult words (3 syllables) [How many years of schooling to understand the content…0-17] • Juicy Studio’s Online Readability Calculator • WORD FREQUENCY/Commonness

  12. Fry Readability Formula = # of sentences and # of syllables ONLY CONSIDERS LIMITED TEXT FEATURES

  13. Word Frequency: Lists of Frequently Used Words Dale Chall’s List of 3,000 Most Frequent Words – see the wiki Coxhead’s (2000) Academic Word List Get to later in vocabulary

  14. Levels, Levels, Levels! “Zombies with Scripts”…. CCSS Appendix A

  15. Lexile Level = sentence length and word frequency CONSIDERS THEREADER& THETEXT

  16. What should you know about each reader in your classroom? • Reader’s Academic Knowledge • Reader’s Processing Ability

  17. Appendix B List…So now what? The standards leave room for teachers, curriculum developers, and states to determine How those goals should be reached and what additional topics should be addressed. Teachers are free to provide students with whatever tools and knowledge their professional judgment and experience identify as most helpful for meeting goals set In the Standards.

  18. So why is this a little scary?? Standard #10: Text Complexity Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently Common Core Standards

  19. Text Complexity Factors Common Core Standards • HUMAN RATED • Levels of meaning • Structure • Language conventionality • Clarity • Knowledge demands • COMPUTER SCORED • Word length • Word frequency • Sentence length • Text Cohesion • Co-Metrix and Lexiles • READER • Motivation • Knowledge • Experiences • TASK • Purpose/Context • Complexity • Questions Posed Considers Teacher, text, reader, & task/context

  20. Students should read challenging texts in their content area on a regular basis(small groups – then large group) • YES • NO

  21. What can you control? And how? • HUMAN RATED • Levels of meaning • Structure • Language conventionality • Clarity • Knowledge demands • COMPUTER SCORED • Word length • Word frequency • Sentence length • Text Cohesion • Co-Metrix and Lexiles NO – JUST BY SELECTION We’ll consider later… How can you design/change/scaffold the task?

  22. The Case for Struggle? • Failure vs. Struggle • Struggle Alone vs. Struggle With Support • Productive Failure (Fisher & Fry, Ch 1, p. 11) = Supported Struggle • Role of “easy” texts with big, complex ideas • Role of guided high-level questioning before, during, and after reading • Role of conversation/dialogue during re-readings • Role of summary, synthesis, transformation

  23. Noticing Good Teaching • What are ten effective teaching techniques that Ms. Chin uses that foster “supported struggle” with a complex text?

  24. 10 Effective Teaching Techniques for Supported Struggle • Pre-read with authentic purpose (character change) • Pre: Provide organizer (Beginning, middle, end) • During: Read hard text indep. for purpose (get familiar with character, language, and how change) • During: (Time 1) Annotate and note author craft • After: (Time 1) Dialogue/conversation with evidence-based reasoning • During: (Time 2) Revisit purpose to analyze more closedly • During: (Time 2) Think-aloud (notice strategy links) • After: (Time 2) Discuss with text-dependent questions • After: Respond/Transform (Write/new dialogue) • Together: Use dialogues and writing as multiple forms of formative assessment (to prepare for PARRC test!)

  25. Homework

  26. Discussion Web Part 2

  27. Supporting Your Argumentation Essay FINAL CONCLUSION

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