CCSS Reading Literature Standards: How My Classroom LIbrary Supports Text Complexity

My attention over the past week has been on the CCSS Reading Literature standards, which, to tell the truth, are a bigger stretch than the writing ones. Rather than get overwhelmed by the depth of reading I should be expecting my students to be doing, I focused on something that I felt I could begin to tackle: tracking students' reading lives in order to move them to ever increasingly complex texts. 

Two years ago, when 4 of the 6 of us MS ELA teachers went to the Teacher's College Reading Institute (and the other two went the year afterward), we toyed with the idea of book ladders and tracking for text complexity. However, there was other--bigger--reading work to be done first, and we put the text complexity work on the back burner. Now that we are more comfortable with Reading Notebooks, reading workshop, reading conferences, and choosing texts for our units, we are ready to tackle text complexity.

We already have a robust independent reading expectation in the Middle School. Students at our school are, in general, enthusiastic readers. We have an excellent library with a knowledgeable librarian who is always willing to guide and suggest next reads for students. We ordered nearly 200 books per classroom for this coming fall to refresh and expand our classroom libraries. We teachers know something about the books our kids are reading, and feel comfortable recommending titles when kids need a book in their hands. Our groundwork is set. The opportunity is ripe.

Here is how I would like to see this reading work play out for each of us in the department this coming school year:

Classroom Library Work

• Inventory books: Start with the Amazon order spreadsheet. Add Booksource order books to list and others already on shelves (title, author-last name, first name)
• Determine genre groups: Fantasy (Fantasy: Science Fiction, Fantasy: Paranormal), Realistic Fiction (Realistic Fiction: Suspense/Thrillers, Realistic Fiction: Mystery), Historical Fiction, Classics, Short Stories, Graphic Novels, Nonfiction (Nonfiction: Autobiography/ Biography/ Memoir), Poetry. Scholastic Book Wizard can check genres. Add to spreadsheet.
• Level books: Use Scholastic Book Wizard to look up Guided Reading Level, and Lexile level. Add to spreadsheet.
• Sort spreadsheet: What organizational structure will best work for your needs? Genre sort? Author sort? Level sort? Combinations?
• Organize library to make it easy for students to find the books they want to read and are at a good level for them.

Moving Students Up Ladders of Text Complexity

• Assess: Here are several ways to find out what level our students are reading at the beginning of the year.
• Ask students to write down one book they read recently (end of previous grade or over the summer) that they feel is a just-right book for them (interesting, easy to read but with enough challenge to keep you thinking). Find that book’s genre/ guided reading/ Lexile level. What plan could you make for that student’s next book to read?
• Consider giving an all-class reading passage with comprehension questions at the level appropriate for the beginning year at your class. TCRWP recommends that students should be reading at the following levels at the beginning of the year: Grade 6: V/W (avg. V), G7: W/X (avg. W), G8 X/Y/Z. Another way to do this is to use students’ spring MAP score to guesstimate a student’s reading level, and give that level of passage to the student instead of the general one. How would this data help you get books into students’ hands?
• Use fall MAP score to determine Lexile level of books to read (approximately). Because Lexile levels reflect only 75% comprehension, we will need to subtract 250 points to find out what Lexile level books the student can read at a 90% comprehension level (independent). According to the CCSS, by the end of the year, students should be reading books at the following Lexile level (I am assuming this level reflects the 75% comprehension target): Grade 6: 925-1070, G7: 970-1120, G8: 1010-1185.
• Fluency: Use early Reading Logs to track students’ fluency rate of pages read per minute. By end of 8th grade, students should read about 1 page per minute. Or have students read silently in their books for 5 minutes, marking where they started and stopped. Then figure out words per minute. TCRWP recommends the following oral reading rates: Level V: 115-150 wpm, Levels W-X-Y: 125-160 wpm, Level Z: 130-165 wpm. If a student is reading very slowly, it may indicate that the reader should be in easier texts or needs fluency support.
• “Red Flag” students: For students who are struggling or are advanced readers, we may want to do a formal running record to find reading level and record fluency, error analysis, and comprehension strengths and gaps. You have the TCRWP Reading Assessment binder in your room to use for this.
• Plan: Now that we have an idea of where a student is at the beginning of the year, what sequence of books can we suggest for each student that will push them to the next level? Consider both guided reading level (complex characters, plot sequence, mature content) and Lexile (long words and sentences). Perhaps a student can move up Lexile while staying at the same guided reading level. Or perhaps a student can move up to the next guided reading level, but at a Lexile level below the student’s target. This way they can work on one aspect at a time, and it won’t be a large jump.
• Use TCRWP book ladders to get recommendations (found in back of Reading Assessment binder). Highlight the books available in the classroom library.
• Should our spreadsheet and book ladders be available for students to see? If they are involved in the goal of moving to increasingly more complex texts, they should have the information needed to make good choices of next books. Make this process transparent.
• Periodic check-ins: How will you sustain this work across the year?