Text Complexity and PA Core Standards
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Transcript of Text Complexity and PA Core Standards
Text Complexity and PA Core Standards
Parent PresentationJPL Intermediate School
March 19, 201412:00-1:30 PM7:00-8:30 PM
Changes to the 3rd-8th grade PSSA Spring 2015
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
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
Text Complexity
Text complexity is defined by:
Qual
itativ
e
Qualitative measures – levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands often best measured by an attentive human reader. Quantitative
Quantitative measures – readability and other scores of text complexity often best measured by computer software.
Reader and Task
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.
3
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)
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
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.
Importance of Text Complexity
Lexile Levels
Old Lexile Expectations
K-1 N/A
2-3 450-775
4-5 645-845
6-8 860-1010
9-10 960-1115
11-CCR 1070-1220
New Lexile Expectations
N/A
450-790
770-980
955-1155
1080-1305
1215-1355
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
Making a Claim by Citing Textual Evidence
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
Close Reading
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
What is Different?
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.
Progressions
Book walk (lexile.com) – may help NEWSELA Destiny - IS Destiny – MS Destiny – HS Overdrive
Interacting with Text
Q&A