text complexity

Reading complex texts has become a hot topic in Minnesota and across the country due to the adoption of the Common Core Standards. Specifically, this refers to: Standard 10. Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.

Here's how text complexity is described in the MN LA CCSS...
Reading: Text complexity and the growth of comprehension: The Reading standards place equal emphasis on the sophistication of what students read and the skill with which they read. Standard 10 defines a grade-by-grade "staircase" of increasing text complexity that rises from beginning reading to the college and career readiness level. Whatever they are reading, students must also show a steadily growing ability to discern more from and make fuller use of text, including making an number of connections among ideas and between texts, considering a wider range of textual evidence, and becoming more sensitive to inconsistencies, ambiguities, and poor reasoning in texts.

And here are the specific standards at each grade level dealing with text complexity...
Kindergarten: 
0.1.10.10 Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding, including the appropriate selection of texts for personal enjoyment, interest, and academic tasks.
First Grade:
 1.1.10.10 With prompting and support, read prose and poetry of appropriate complexity for grade 1 as well as select texts for personal enjoyment, interest, and academic tasks.
Second Grade:
2.1.10.10 By the end of the year, select, read and comprehend literature including stories and poetry for personal enjoyment, interest, and academic tasks, in the grades 2–3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
Third Grade:
3.1.10.10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature and other texts including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the grades 2-3 text complexity band independently and proficiently. a. Self-select texts for personal enjoyment, interest, and academic tasks.
Fourth & Fifth Grades:
4/5.1.10.10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature and other texts including stories, drama, and poetry, in the grades 4-5 text complexity band proficiently and independently with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. a. Self-select texts for personal enjoyment, interest, and academic tasks.
6th - 8th Grades:
6/7/8.4.10.10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature and other texts including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 6–8 text complexity band proficiently and independently with appropriate scaffolding for texts at the high end of the range. a. Self-select texts for personal enjoyment, interest and academic tasks. b. Read widely to understand multiple perspectives and pluralistic viewpoints. 
Ninth & Tenth Grades:
9.4.10.10 By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literature and other texts including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 9–10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. a. Self-select texts for personal enjoyment, interest, and academic tasks. b. Read widely to understand multiple perspectives and pluralistic viewpoints. By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literature and other texts including stories, dramas, and poems at the high end of the grades 9–10 text complexity band independently and proficiently. a. Self-select texts for personal enjoyment, interest, and academic tasks. b. Read widely to understand multiple perspectives and pluralistic viewpoints.
Eleventh & Twelfth Grades:
11.4.10.10 By the end of grade 11, read and comprehend literature and other texts including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 11–CCR text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. a. Self-select texts for personal enjoyment, interest, and academic tasks. b. Read widely to understand multiple perspectives and pluralistic viewpoints. By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literature and other texts including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of the grades 11–CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently. a. Self-select texts for personal enjoyment, interest, and academic tasks. b. Read widely to understand multiple perspectives and pluralistic viewpoints.

So what does this mean and why the focus in the standards? Though by many objectives measures (NAEP, PISA), our students are performing at a consistent level in reading and writing tasks, employers and colleges are noting a need for students to have more practice reading (and writing) complex texts, promoting critical thinking, multiple perspectives, and a greater stamina for reading difficult texts. We know that students need lots of practice reading self-selected texts (as evidenced in the standards), but they also need practiced reading increasingly longer, more complex texts - the types of discipline-specific texts they are likely to encounter in subjects outside of language arts and throughout their college and employment careers. And this refers to print and digital texts - students need practice with their digital literacy skills for the marketplace, higher ed, and their general societal participation.

So how do we know complex text when we see it? According to the MN LA Standards, there are three factors that influence text complexity:

1. Qualitative evaluation of the text: Levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands [this includes things like vocabulary, genre, sentence and text structure and organization, and coherence of the text]
2. Quantitative evaluation of the text: Readability measures and other scores of text complexity [measures like Fry Readability, Lexile, or other readability schemes]
3. Matching reader to text and task: Reader variables (such as motivation, knowledge, and experiences) and task variables (such as purpose and the complexity generated by the task assigned and the questions posed) [also including students' background knowledge, if a purpose has been set for the reading, students' self-efficacy and self-regulation, students' decoding, fluency, comprehension and vocabulary development]

In a research study that I was a part of in graduate school, we asked students to rate the difficulty of texts that they encountered on am MCA-like assessment. When they rated texts, many of the students blamed the words for whether or not a text was easy, hard, or just right for them. Students don't always know these measures of text complexity, but they do know whether or not they stumble over the words in the text. Sometimes this is due to other factors - like coherence and structure, and sometimes it is really that they don't have the vocabulary development for the text. Analyzing the combination of qualitative and quantitative factors that lie within the text, and the readers that are to  engage with the text helps you determine the complexity of the text.

So what can you do? Shanahan, Fisher, & Frey (2012) suggest that one major thing for teachers to do to meet these standards is to build students' decoding, fluency, and comprehension skills. One way to do this is to encourage multiple readings of texts, interactive reading guides to help build comprehension, and ongoing vocabulary instruction helping students learn connections between words and concepts, not just definitions. Another thing teachers can do is establish a purpose for the texts that you are reading in class. Students will be better able to tackle complex texts if they know why they are reading the text and what will be asked of them at the end of reading the text. Students need lots of practice with close reading: annotating texts, rereading texts, and being a critical reader of texts. Teach text structures and (I've said this a bunch of times) teach students that they have to reread texts - whether they want to or not. Another thing to try is to help build students' stamina for reading text. Just like a runner wouldn't go out and run a marathon the first time they tie on their running shoes, you want students to build stamina for reading complex texts. This kind of work can help build students' persistence for texts. Some examples of lessons for this can be found at: ReadWriteThink and Achieve the Core. All content teachers can help meet these standards in their classes. Something that all teachers need to do, of course, is provide the scaffolding for students to read increasingly difficult texts. 

How are you thinking about text complexity in your position?

* References:
Minnesota Academic Standards: English Language Arts K-12, 2010
Varlas, L. (2012). It's complicated: Common Core State Standards focus on text complexity. ASCD Education Update, 54(4).
Shanahan, T., Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2012). The challenge of challenging texts. Educational Leadership, 69(6), 58-62.