In our efforts to motivate students to engage in reading instruction–– particularly in middle and high school–– we’ve often responded by trying to make reading feel easier. These instincts are rooted in good intentions, but are our efforts unintentionally undermining our students’ opportunities for success?
During several recent presentations, participants have asked how I generate text sets to build background knowledge for a particular literary selection. It’s an important question—because for many adolescents, especially those who are disengaged from reading, background knowledge is often the difference between confusion and connection.
Automaticity is built through volume. But volume alone is not enough. Volume must be designed. At TextProject, we have built a coherent Staircase of Automaticity in Reading.
Too many reading interventions send adolescents back to the beginning—as if a thirteen- or seventeen-year-old were encountering print for the first time. But adolescent readers who score below Proficient are not at zero. When we begin where students actually are, we align practice with theory—and give adolescents the forward momentum they deserve.
What does NAEP Proficiency actually represent? Is it intended to describe what is developmentally appropriate for most eighth graders, or does it represent a more ambitious target? Ambitious goals are essential—they push systems forward. But when aspirational benchmarks are misread as diagnostic norms, high expectations become public condemnation.
While pundits paint dire pictures of 2024 NAEP results for 8th and 12th grades, the reality is more nuanced: many teens simply haven’t read enough… Read More »From Reluctant to Engaged: Open-Access Text Sets That Transform Adolescent Readers
This study examined how the lexical complexity of elementary reading textbooks has changed over six decades, finding that the issue is not declining rigor, but rather compressed progression.
At TextProject, we believe that literacy is the gateway to agency. But beyond the mechanics of reading lies the why: the stories that stay with us, the… Read More »Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary: Reviving Freddy’s Favorites
Even at the earliest stages, TextProject texts support knowledge acquisition as well as word recognition. Our resources, including those for beginning readers—BeginningReads and TopicReads-Primary— ensure students master decoding through meaningful content. Instead of repetitive nonsense, a TextProject text states: “A hat has a brim. A brim of a hat blocks the sun.”
By mapping the 2,000 most frequent words in English onto the d-ELP (Developmental English Lexicon Project) difficulty scale, we can create texts that repeat critical patterns while maintaining genuine meaning for young readers.
