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Matching Readers with Texts and Tasks
Participants review how to interpret quantitative Lexile or ATOS scores of text complexity and apply text complexity measures to classroom situations to aid in choosing texts and activities. Read More
New Academic Word List (NAWL) Finder and Sorter
EAPFoundation.com offers a free electronic tool for finding, highlighting, and sorting academic words within texts. Their word source is the New Academic Word List or NAWL, a recent update of the Academic Word List or AWL. There is also the option of creating a simple, head word, or word family gapfill, where the found academic words become blanks in the text. Read More
Teaching and Assessing Understanding of Text Structures Across Grades
This article summarizes the research on teaching text structures and discusses implications for instruction across grade levels. Read More
Academic Word Finder
The Academic Word Finder is a free electronic tool from Achieve the Core that quickly identifies academic words in copied and pasted texts. It is not intended to "replace teacher judgment; rather, it helps to support the teacher and identify the most useful academic words." Read More
Achieve the Core – ELA Standards
The site describes itself as "full of free content designed to help educators understand and implement the Common Core and other college and career ready standards." Resources include CCRS-aligned lessons, activities, assessments and more, but also materials to support educators in understanding the standards and the content. Read More
What does text complexity mean for English learners and language minority students?
In this paper, the authors demonstrate how English learners can be provided with strategies for accessing complex texts, such as closely examining one sentence at a time, and argue that instruction must go beyond vocabulary and should begin with an examination of our beliefs about language, literacy and learning. Read More
Choosing Complex Text
This video from ReadWriteThink features a first-grade teacher talking through the steps that she uses to select a complex text for her class. The strategies that are described are easily adapted to adult EL classrooms. Read More