Text Complexity and PA Core Standards

1. Text Complexity and PA Core Standards Parent Presentation JPL Intermediate School March 19, 2014 12:00-1:30 PM 7:00-8:30 PM

2. Changes to the 3rd-8th grade PSSA Spring 2015 New PSSA Beginning Spring 2015 ELA Test – combined reading and writing for 3rd -8th grades Aligned with new PA Core Standards Lexile level increase Higher rigor More emphasis on non-fiction reading Citing textual evidence Current PSSA • Reading Test 3rd – 8th grades • Writing Test – 4th and 8th grades only • Science – 5th and 8th only • Has new reading and math questions embedded as field test items • Students answer but questions do not count in their score

3. Text Complexity • Text complexity is defined by: Qualitative measures – levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands often best measured by an attentive human reader. Quantitative measures – readability and other scores of text complexity often best measured by computer software. Quantitative Qualitative Reader and Task considerations – background knowledge of reader, motivation, interests, and complexity generated by tasks assigned often best made by educators employing their professional judgment. Reader and Task

4. Importance of Text Complexity ACT scores indicate a correlation between high test scores and success in first year college courses Success was not equated with their ability to make inferences but rather their ability to answer questions with complex text Students need access to high-quality literature and their engagement with complex texts which helps build content knowledge that is important in comprehending both nonfiction and fiction texts (Shanahan 2012)

5. Importance of Text Complexity Comprehension of nonfiction texts is especially dependent on the reader’s background knowledge. The more texts a reader processes, the more he knows and can bring to future reading. Readers with high exposure to texts have developed mental models of the characteristics of each genre —a complicated set of understandings that take years to develop

6. Importance of Text Complexity But standards do not usually prescribe that students must spend all their time reading texts that are extremely hard for them, with no access to books that will help them learn. Good to have a combination of books that are high interest, high lexile levels and some that build on prior knowledge.

8. Lexile Levels New Lexile Expectations Old Lexile Expectations

9. Making a Claim by Citing Textual Evidence A SHIFT – students must “prove” that they understand what they’ve read by sharing answers and their locations in a text. It is no longer “ok” to answer based entirely on prior knowledge. What did the book say and where???? Common Core Instruction: Making a Claim Using Two Texts with Similar Themes

10. Close Reading A SHIFT – students are encouraged to annotate a text using “sticky notes” or on-line tools to “put in their own words” what the text is saying Close Reading Strategies with Informational Text by Expeditionary Learning

11. What is Different? Fewer texts with more depth Increase student stamina – read and comprehend longer passages at a time Read, reread, reread Citing Evidence – background knowledge no longer as important in the answer Close Reading – teaching students how/why to annotate

12. Progressions Progressions in the PA Core Standards allow for easy understanding by students, teachers, parents and administrators. In Math and Reading, it shows what students should know at the end of each school year and what they will be expected to learn in the following year.

17. Interacting with Text Book walk (lexile.com) – may help NEWSELA Destiny - IS Destiny – MS Destiny – HS Overdrive

18. Q&A