4 Ways to Help Students Tackle Complex Texts
October 7, 2024
What’s complex to one student may be relatively accessible to others. Some students struggle to read texts at grade level. Others may find scientific language challenging. All students might find poetry or Shakespeare difficult until they learn strategies on how to approach figurative language. Whatever the challenge a particular text poses, I have found that there are four key practices I rely on when introducing any text that’s more complex than what students can read independently.
Select a lesson structure that makes intentional scaffolding possible. I rely on lesson types such as read aloud, close reading, and shared reading when introducing a text that I know students will find challenging. While all three lesson structures provide opportunities to support students, I turn to each at different times. I tend to use read-aloud lessons to explicitly model strategies and engage students in active processing of texts. I find that shared-reading lessons are best when I want to support accurate word reading, fluency, and comprehension. Although I typically use shared-reading lessons – which include repeated, choral, and echo reading – with younger students, there may be occasions, such as the introduction of new poetic forms, when shared reading will be particularly effective for older (even high school) students. I turn to close-reading lessons when I want to help more experienced readers do deeper analytic work such as looking at figurative language, symbolism, mood, and tone.
Plan the various supports you will offer and be ready to pivot. With any lesson structure you choose, you’ll plan where you will pause to offer a variety of supports. I find that read-aloud offers lots of opportunity for me to explicitly model strategies, quickly define key vocabulary, and engage students in conversation. In fact, I often follow-up read-aloud lessons with conversation lessons. In close reading, I typically choose a shorter text and pause more frequently. I often direct students to re-read, read with a partner, and I might even read aloud certain key sections of the text. With shared reading, I’m typically working on fluency and foundational skills. I listen for opportunities to decode, smooth out mumbled reading, or a quick group pause and think.
Provide plenty of opportunity for students to engage, and check for understanding. When I’m teaching any lesson, I always provide plenty of opportunity for students to be active, and I get feedback from them about what they are learning as I teach. I might ask for simple thumbs up or down to indicate understanding. I may prompt students to jot a quick answer on a white board or reflect more deeply in their reader’s journals. I might lean in to listen to different pairs of students in a turn and talk to determine if all or several students have missed a key point. Or I might interpret students’ body language indicating puzzlement or boredom. No matter what lesson structure I am using I am constantly gauging students’ level of engagement and understanding and adjusting my instruction accordingly.
Build conceptually coherent text sets. Research shows that grouping different types of texts that explore a similar topic or are related conceptually helps students build and better retain knowledge, acquire new vocabulary, and make connections. So, I’m always looking for new texts that connect to others I already love to teach with. Text sets should include a variety of text types, a range of complexity, and different formats. For instance, a conceptually coherent text set about the life cycles of trees might include an article from a science magazine, a video from a nature channel, a picture book about forests, an audio recording of the wind through leaves, and Robert Frost’s beautiful poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. With this text set, I might use shared reading for the poetry, close reading for the science article, and read aloud for the picture book.
Discover more about how to match lesson structures to text complexity, literacy and knowledge goals, and sociocultural context in Teaching Reading Across the Day. Explore more than 300 reading strategies to develop skilled readers in The Reading Strategies Book 2.0.