What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction - International ...

that support literacy teaching and learning within a new literacies
framework. Each participant should e-mail other group members
during the week to recommend a particular site and explain why the
recommendation is being made.
Also, as the sessions begin to wind down, group members should
reflect on their professional learning during this book study. How will
they apply their learning in the classroom? How will they share their
learning with colleagues and administrators?
SESSION 16
Standards, Assessments, and Text
Difficulty (Chapter 15)
This chapter examines definitions of text difficulty and how they are
expressed in standards and assessments. Elfrieda Hiebert reviews
work on readability and lexiles and describes how models of text
difficulty have replaced readability formulas. She goes on to discuss
the treatment of text difficulty in U.S. national and state standards
and how it is used in assessments that attempt to determine whether
those standards have been met.
Framing the Session
Desired outcomes
• To examine definitions of text difficulty and how they are
expressed in standards and assessments
• To explore interpretations of text difficulty in assessments used
to determine whether standards have been achieved
Guiding questions
• Is there a match between the curricular materials identified
in your district as appropriate for use in meeting state or
national standards and the texts used in assessment? Why
or why not?
• What criteria need to be considered when determining text
difficulty?
From the Professional Development Edition of What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction
(3rd ed.), © 2009 International Reading Association.
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