Text Complexity: School Librarians Have a Role

Fuente: ERIC Institute of Education Sciences
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Main Author: DelVecchio, Stephen
Format: Recurso educativo Open Access
Language:en
Published: 2012
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author DelVecchio, Stephen
author_facet DelVecchio, Stephen
DelVecchio, Stephen
collection Education Resources Information Center
contents Text Complexity: School Librarians Have a Role DelVecchio, Stephen State Standards Writing Skills High School Graduates Elementary Secondary Education State Departments of Education Librarians Academic Standards Role School Libraries Reading Skills Library Materials Reading Material Selection Job Skills Standard Setting The gap between the reading and writing skills of high school graduates and the demands of freshman college coursework and employers was one of the greatest concerns when the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers were developing the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (CCSS-ELA). A particular concern was that many high school graduates could not read and comprehend the texts required to learn and perform, whether in coursework or the workplace. The authors of the Common Core State Standards were faced with the challenge of addressing this gap in a concrete and vivid way. They, along with the many teachers, curriculum developers, and others wanted a way to describe a set of goals for students in terms of the degree of difficulty and sophistication of the texts they should learn to comprehend by the end of their K-12 years. However, there was great concern that the best known, most widely used traditional quantitative tools for measuring and describing the degree of difficulty of a given text were inadequate in the K-12 instructional environment. In response, the authors developed the concept of "text complexity." Text complexity includes both the traditional quantitative measures of readability or text difficulty, but also adds two other equally important or even more significant approaches to evaluating the level and appropriateness of a given text for use in K-12 instruction. The two additional parts of the Standards' model of text complexity are "qualitative measures of text complexity" and "reader and task considerations." The sophisticated and deep knowledge found in texts, books, and other resources require children to effectively apply the CCSS-ELA model of text complexity. It is because of these complex demands of CCSS-ELA that school librarians are absolutely essential to the successful selection of appropriate texts. State departments of education, district superintendents, curriculum developers, principals, and teachers should recognize this need, and school librarians have an opportunity to rise to the challenge. (Contains 1 figure.)
format Recurso educativo Open Access
id eric_EJ1000885
institution ERIC Institute of Education Sciences
language en
publishDate 2012
record_format eric
spellingShingle Text Complexity: School Librarians Have a Role
DelVecchio, Stephen
State Standards
Writing Skills
High School Graduates
Elementary Secondary Education
State Departments of Education
Librarians
Academic Standards
Role
School Libraries
Reading Skills
Library Materials
Reading Material Selection
Job Skills
Standard Setting
Text Complexity: School Librarians Have a Role DelVecchio, Stephen State Standards Writing Skills High School Graduates Elementary Secondary Education State Departments of Education Librarians Academic Standards Role School Libraries Reading Skills Library Materials Reading Material Selection Job Skills Standard Setting The gap between the reading and writing skills of high school graduates and the demands of freshman college coursework and employers was one of the greatest concerns when the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers were developing the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (CCSS-ELA). A particular concern was that many high school graduates could not read and comprehend the texts required to learn and perform, whether in coursework or the workplace. The authors of the Common Core State Standards were faced with the challenge of addressing this gap in a concrete and vivid way. They, along with the many teachers, curriculum developers, and others wanted a way to describe a set of goals for students in terms of the degree of difficulty and sophistication of the texts they should learn to comprehend by the end of their K-12 years. However, there was great concern that the best known, most widely used traditional quantitative tools for measuring and describing the degree of difficulty of a given text were inadequate in the K-12 instructional environment. In response, the authors developed the concept of "text complexity." Text complexity includes both the traditional quantitative measures of readability or text difficulty, but also adds two other equally important or even more significant approaches to evaluating the level and appropriateness of a given text for use in K-12 instruction. The two additional parts of the Standards' model of text complexity are "qualitative measures of text complexity" and "reader and task considerations." The sophisticated and deep knowledge found in texts, books, and other resources require children to effectively apply the CCSS-ELA model of text complexity. It is because of these complex demands of CCSS-ELA that school librarians are absolutely essential to the successful selection of appropriate texts. State departments of education, district superintendents, curriculum developers, principals, and teachers should recognize this need, and school librarians have an opportunity to rise to the challenge. (Contains 1 figure.)
title Text Complexity: School Librarians Have a Role
topic State Standards
Writing Skills
High School Graduates
Elementary Secondary Education
State Departments of Education
Librarians
Academic Standards
Role
School Libraries
Reading Skills
Library Materials
Reading Material Selection
Job Skills
Standard Setting
url https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1000885