English Language Development

Figure 7.3. Associated Ranges from Multiple Measures for the Grades Nine and Ten and

Eleven and Twelve Text Complexity Bands

Grade

Band

ATOS

(Renaissance

Learning)

Degrees

of

Reading

Power®

Flesch-

Kincaid

The Lexile

Frame-

work®

Reading

Maturity

Source

Rater

9–10 9.67–12.01 62–72 8.32–12.12 1050–1335 8.41–10.81 9.02–13.93

11–12 11.20–14.10 67–74 10.34–14.2 1185–1385 9.57–12.00 12.30–14.50

Source

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. n.d. “Supplemental

Information for Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy: New

Research on Text Complexity,” 4. Common Core State Standards Initiative

High school students are on the verge of entering their adult lives, and their schooling experiences
should acknowledge this by apprenticing these students into the world of literate adults, fully capable
of embarking on the career or educational paths of their choosing and contributing to our democratic
society. This is a complex endeavor requiring teachers, as mentors, to engage students in thinking
critically about the texts they read and hear. In high school, students develop a critical stance toward
literature as they consider an author’s purpose for writing a text and the language choices the author
has made to express his or her views of the world, including the socio-political, cultural, global, and
historical context at the time of a text’s publication.

Curriculum planning and text selection based on the CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy and other content
standards should occur first. Texts selected should be sufficiently challenging while also suitable
for the purposes of the course and the knowledge and skills to be developed. A range of text types
and genres, as appropriate, should be selected. As teachers plan instruction, they read the texts
closely for important content and ideas and analyze the texts carefully for complexity, including
levels of meaning, structure, knowledge demands, and language conventionality and clarity,
including vocabulary. Identifying the features that may be new or that are likely to pose difficulties
for their students, teachers plan ways to support students before, during, and after they read. The
CA ELD Standards are an essential tool for analyzing texts for issues of language for ELs. Specific
comprehension strategies (see the following section and chapter 2 of this ELA/ELD Framework) help
students access text meanings in order to participate in discussions and write about the texts.

Developing a classroom and school culture that values effort and persistence is critical, as is
building student stamina and enthusiasm for reading. The aim is for students to learn that working
hard to construct meaning from texts not only makes future reading easier, but can also bring personal
satisfaction and new insights and result in tangible progress toward achieving postsecondary goals.
Sometimes, a text may not seem complex or seem to be at the high school reading level because of
its quantitative measurement (e.g., John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath). However, the knowledge
demands and complexities of meaning of certain texts make them suitable and even challenging for
high school students.

It is important to consider all three aspects of text complexity—quantitative measures, qualitative
measures, and reader-task considerations—when selecting texts for instruction and to focus first and
foremost on the meanings students need to make with the texts they read. See chapter 2 of this
ELA/ELD Framework for more information on text complexity and close reading.

676 | Chapter 7 Grades 9 to 12