Common Core State Standards

An Examination of Current Text Difficulty Indices with Early Reading Texts

This report examines the difficulty of early reading texts over the years as measured by today's prevailing indices.

Benchmark Texts: Stepping Up Complexity

Adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) represents the first time that explicit complexity levels have been set for grade-level texts. The Standards give little guidance for how to support the many students who struggle to read complex texts. TextProject is responding to this need with research-based resources to guide educators in identifying appropriate texts for struggling readers.

The Text Complexity Multi-Index

The Text Complexity Multi-Index (TCMI) is a process for matching texts with students. The process attends to all three dimensions that were recommended by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS Initiative, 2011) for selecting texts: (a) quantitative, (b) qualitative, and (c) reader-text match. Qualitative measures are of two types: comparison with a set of benchmark texts and a scheme for analyzing core traits of texts. The two types of qualitative measures mean that the TCMI process has four steps.

The Common Core State Standard of Text Complexity

Standard 10 of the Common Core State Standards focuses on increasing students’ capacity with complex text across the school years to ensure that they are able to read the texts of higher education and careers. The goal is an important one but educators are faced with numerous challenges. How should text complexity be established? What are the best ways to increase students’ capacity, especially the students who are challenged by grade-level texts. Answers to these questions are the focus of this presentation.

Looking "within" the Lexile for more guidance

The Common Core State Standards are complex and include a multitude of features that are aimed at moving American students to a higher levels of literacy in the digital-global world of the 21st century. When faced with a change—especially one where there is a great deal at stake and that involves complexity—an initial response often is to hang our hats on what can be done—quickly and efficiently.

The View of Text Complexity within the Common Core State Standards

The Role of Text in Developing Reading Fluency and Comprehension UPDATED VERSION

Dr. Freddy Hiebert discussed why text matters in developing reading fluency. Texts that contain too many difficult words frustrate beginning readers. This presentation examined key features in texts that support fluency and comprehension. Dr. Hiebert also closely examined the texts in core reading programs to highlight the need for texts that increase reading fluency and comprehension. This updated version of the presentation includes an explanation of how QuickReads fits in with the Common Core Standards.

ELA-CCSS: Text Complexity in Upper Elementary Grades

Karen Wixson, former dean of the School of Education at Univerisity of Michigan, presented at the 2011 Michigan Reading Association.  Her presentation ELA-CCSS: Text Complexity in Upper Elementary Grades, is available here for download.

What's Core from the Vantage Point of Science Content

Conference slides for J. Barber's presentation at the NCRLL - Implementing the Common Core State Standards: Getting to the core session at IRA 2011.

From the Vantage Point of Struggling Readers

Presentation slides from E.H. Hiebert's presentation at NCRLL - Implementing the Common Core State Standards: Getting to the core session at IRA, 2011.

ELA-CCSS: What is the core content

Conference slides for K. Wixson at the NCRLL - Implementing the Common Core State Standards: Getting to the core session at IRA 2011.

Looking “Within” the Lexile for More Guidance: Word Frequency and Sentence Length

Teachers should use the lexile rating as an initial piece of information, much like a check of someone’s temperature. A temperature can be high or low for lots of different reasons. The average sentence length and average word frequency gives teachers more specific information that is useful for decision-making.

Is Reading in Kindergarten the Means for Ensuring College and Career Readiness?

The inclusion of kindergarten in the CCSS about text difficulty represents an implicit assumption about beginning reading that also requires consideration—that earlier is better. Does beginning reading in kindergarten truly ensure that high school graduates are better at reading the complex texts of careers and college? In this essay, I review research on both the explicit and implicit assumptions within the CCSS regarding formal reading instruction in kindergarten: the dumbing down of kindergarten texts and the pushing down of reading instruction to kindergarten.

The Common Core State Standards and Text Complexity

This chapter explores the concept of text complexity and how it is addressed in the Common Core State Standards.

Understanding the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts