A decade ago, states across the nation adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in an effort to raise the academic bar for their students. This has provoked countless political battles since then--including an especially intense one in Florida. That fight culminated in Governor Ron DeSantis vowing to eliminate and replace the Common Core,…

The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts have prompted enormous attention to issues of text complexity. The purpose of this article is to put text complexity in perspective by moving from a primary focus on the text itself to a focus on the comprehension of complex text. We argue that a focus on comprehension is at the heart of…

This case study examines how Ashley, a ninth-grade student, uses and applies metacognitive strategies for comprehension as she reads three different texts: a literary narrative, a history text, and a newspaper article. Interviews and think-aloud protocols were administered to investigate how the student thought about and enacted a variety of…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) set a controversial aspirational, quantitative trajectory for text complexity exposure for readers throughout the grades, aiming for all high school graduates to be able to independently read complex college and workplace texts. However, the trajectory standard is presented without reference to how the…

Common Core Reading Standard 10 not only prescribes the difficulty of texts students should become able to read, but also the difficulty diet of texts schools should ask their students to read across the school year. The use of quantitative text-assessment tools in the implementation of this standard warrants an examination into the validity of…

In this technical report, we document the development and piloting of easyCBM reading measures aligned to the Common Core State Standards, designed for use in screening students at risk for reading difficulty and monitoring their progress as they develop reading skills. The measures, which assess students' ability to respond to…

We tested the effects of teaching reading skills through U.S. history content for 38 eighth-grade poor readers whose reading ability ranged from second-to fourth-grade levels. Half of the students received special education services, and half of the students were English language learners. Students were taught to decode multisyllabic words, learn…

We tested the effects of teaching reading skills through U.S. History content for 38 eighth-grade poor readers whose reading ability ranged from 2nd to 4th grade levels. Half of the students received special education services and half of the students were English Language Learners. Students were taught to decode multisyllabic words, learn…

What is meant by text complexity is a measurement of how challenging a particular text is to read. There are a myriad of different ways of explaining what makes text challenging to read, from the sophistication of the vocabulary employed to the length of its sentences to even measurements of how the text as a whole coheres. Research shows that no…

As shown by MetLife's 2010 "Survey of the American Teacher," America's educators strongly believe that all students should graduate from high school ready for college and a career (85 percent). Additionally, according to MetLife's 2009 survey, 86 percent of teachers believe that setting high expectations for students will improve student…

The development of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test involves input from educators across the state. The development process attempts to create an assessment that reflects the skills and content understanding of students at the tested grade level. This study attempts to determine other factors that can affect student performance on…

One of the key requirements of the Common Core State Standards for Reading is that all students must be able to comprehend texts of steadily increasing complexity as they progress through school. By the time they complete the core, students must be able to read and comprehend independently and proficiently the kinds of complex texts commonly found…

The New York State Preliminary Competency Test in Reading is designed to measure a student's ability to understand written material of varying levels of difficulty. Results are used to evaluate a student's current level of achievement in reading and to indicate the extent of compensatory or remedial help which may be necessary to pass the final…