“There is a big difference between assigning complex texts and teaching complex texts…”

—Doug, Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp

Your Work Matters

In February, I discussed ideas about being intentional with the questions we ask when analyzing our data. In that newsletter, I shared my dismay at the plan to “find more passages.”

I’ve already written about this, so why am I bringing it up again? Because we are creatures of habit. And as a former literacy coach, I know exactly how conversations during grade level planning are going after the latest round of assessments meant to predict state testing results. Do your conversations sound like this?

• What was the lowest standard? Oh that’s an informational text standard. Let’s plan on using informational text passages during small groups next week.

There are some positive practices in this example - we are analyzing students’ performance and thinking about how to respond instructionally to address their gaps.

But picture this. You have a hard time understanding what you read. So for support, your teacher hands you another passage to read and tells you to write RUNNERS down the page, to find the main idea, and use context clues for unknown words. Have you learned anything that will help develop your understanding of the text? Maybe, maybe not.

Has the author provided context clues in the text that support the reader with challenging words? How clearly are the ideas on the text connected to support the reader’s understanding? Will RUNNERS help the reader with analyzing the text structure?

Passages aren’t instruction. Simply practicing with more informational text passages may not address the reason students struggled with that standard. As Sue Pimentel and David Liben explain, “Reporting test results by standards, strategies, genre or any single construct confuses cause and effect. Answering a question based on a standard is an effect of comprehension, not a cause. And a student’s response to any one question tied to a standard does not predict how well that student will do on a similar question using a different text.” (74 million, 2025)

If the tests haven’t changed (they haven’t) we can adjust our analysis and instructional response. Simply giving students more passages isn’t instruction, what we do with them is. And we can do more than vaguely tell students to use context clues or think about the main idea.

Let’s put what Pimentel and Liben said to the test. I live in North Carolina and have a child in 4th grade so I’m using a passage from the Grade 4 Reading North Carolina End-of-Grade Released Assessment as an example; let’s look at Dinos in the Dark by Stephen Whitt. In the released answer key, we have access to the Depth of Knowledge and the aligned standard for each question. A typical data table for this passage might look like the one below:

When analyzing this data, we immediately see that this passage was challenging for our class. There is only one question that the class got right, and zero students got a 100%. We notice that students need help with informational text standards, although maybe less so RI.4.3? RI.4.1 is a mystery - the understanding of that standard is split 50/50. But clearly, we need to teach RI.4.5. And this is typically where the conversation ends - we recognize which standards need to be addressed, begin searching for an informational text/passage to use, and away we go.

Have we determined why students struggled with this passage? It is possible that the questions were challenging, but that cannot be the answer for all students. Because (again) the ability to answer comprehension questions is the effect, not the cause. We need to dig deeper.

First, we go back and read the text, considering the guiding questions of The Reading Comprehension Blueprint as we read.

1. In this passage, I notice that there are multiple text structures (descriptive, compare/contrast, problem solution) in different paragraphs.
2. The cohesion of the text is a bit loose because connected sentences are separated by large amounts of text, such as the sentence that refers to types of reptiles, but doesn’t name them as such until later in the text.
3. The author assumes the reader has some background understanding of geography and related climates, shifting plates, and types of land, such as a peninsula. *And none of these words are defined in the footnotes either.

A question to consider then is how well do students understand these concepts (listed above) in the text? Use the answers to that question to guide instructional moves; might students benefit from some lessons about text structure and how to make sense of text when the author connects sentences paragraphs away from each other?

When we next consider the language in the standards, we must do so with the text demands in mind while also paying attention to the fact the standards say what students should DO as a result of their text comprehension. The standards are written assuming students comprehend the text and can therefore think critically about it. (If it is easier, pretend each of these standards begins with, “assuming the student understands the text…”

• RI.4.1 - Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
• RI.4.2 - Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text.
• RI.4.3 - Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.
• RI.4.4 - Determine the meaning of general academic and domain specific words or phrases in a text relevant to a grade 4 topic or subject area.
• RI.4.5 - Describe the overall structure of events, ideas, concepts, or information in a text or part of a text.

Let's take a look at one page of questions for this text and consider how the text demands impact students' success rate at answering them.

To answer question 33, a student must comprehend paragraph 2 and the connection between the first two sentences in it. The text structure in paragraphs 1-2 is compare/contrast/description, which explains the surprise; it compares our typical picture of dinosaur climate to what paleontologists have discovered - that dinosaurs lived in both warm and cold climates.

To answer question 34, a student must comprehend paragraph 4, the second descriptive paragraph about Dinosaur Cove. One reason this is tricky is that the text structure in these paragraphs is descriptive, but the sentence selected to answer the question is a comparison. WHAT!? This is why you'll see students selecting answer C - we've been learning about different climates, just not then and now. Additionally, if students don't understand the climate in Alaska and how the author is using it to further describe the cold climate, this question will feel tricky.

To answer question 35, students must understand that Dinosaur Cove is a place (explained in previous paragraphs). It is possible that students will understand the word plunged in other contexts - a plunger, plunging underwater, etc. However in this instance, the correct answer "fell suddenly" is a stretch given the sentence it is in.

Knowing what we know about the text and given these questions, here are some possible lessons:

• Types of text structure, and how to identify them in a text.
• How do authors use different types of text structure in one text?
• Multiple meaning words - building students' vocabulary and making connections to known words using morphology

Notice how the focus of these lessons is not "informational text" in a passage; rather, it focuses on helping students access the text in order to comprehend. What we must realize is that a student who masters “RI.4.2” on one passage might flop it on the next, because it depends on the text, in addition to whether the student knows how to summarize a text. If the text presents too many challenges in how it is crafted, the student will struggle to find the main idea and key details.

When we teach how to navigate different demands in texts, we better equip students to handle new texts. Working on identifying the text structure, understanding sentences and how they are formed, how authors leave information out to make their text more interesting (different types of inferences), and developing students’ vocabulary, we set them up for success. And indirectly, we might see an impact on the tests that haven’t yet changed.

Leadership Moves:

1. Center the text in our comprehension work.
2. Focus on comprehension PROCESSES rather than the products.
3. Move the focus away from standards as isolated skills.

What does this mean for me?

It is not too late to check in on teachers’ instructional plans. Are passages being used as text to support instruction? Or are passages the instruction? Encourage your colleagues to examine the texts used and consider what challenges (demands) they present. Read them with the Blueprint in hand and consider how you might respond accordingly.

Revolution Resources

Check out previous newsletters for related reading:

• ​Diving Into Comprehension​
• ​Types of Skills​
• ​Standards Aren’t Instruction & Are Standards Enough?​
• ​Knowing Our Readers​
• ​Walk the Talk​

Recommended Reading:

• ​The Reading Comprehension Blueprint​
• ​Know Better, Do Better: Comprehension​
• ​Placing Texts at the Center​

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Where have we been?

April has been a whirlwind of a month. My family enjoyed spring break during which we celebrated our birthday marathon and went to the beach. My family has birthdays three days in a row in April! We saw the Minecraft movie, went to Discovery Place, and tried out a new spot called Activate. And yes, I have Steve's Lava Chicken stuck in my head now. (It's a lava attack!)

Professionally it was a "quiet" month of projects, client work, and volunteer work with The Reading League North Carolina. TRL-NC is co-hosting a Virtual Summer Symposium! All are welcome to attend - general admission tickets are $40 and member tickets are $10. Learn more about our Symposium by clicking the button below.

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Sharing the Work of Others

Registration is now open for the spring session of Student Achievement Partners’ Improving Reading for Older Students course! This course is an excellent way for teachers to learn practical instructional strategies designed specifically for striving adolescent readers. Group discounts are available when enrolling 10+ participants! Learn more and register here. *Disclosure - I am a former facilitator of this course; it is FANTASTIC!!!

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**I've had the chance to explore this resource and I think EVERY district and community needs it! It is a truly incredible resource for teachers and families as they navigate the pathways needed for future careers.

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