Contrasting Views on Increasing Capacity for Complex Text: Common Core State Standards and Jeanne Chall

• In Event: Text Complexity: What Is It, How Is It Measured, and, After All, Why Is It Important?

Abstract

Purpose
At the center of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS Initiative, 2010) is a staircase approach of increasingly higher text levels to ensure that graduating high school students can read the complex texts of college and careers. The purpose of this analysis is to examine the scholarship underlying the CCSS policy on text complexity.

Perspective
Jeanne Chall (1977) was the first to identify the “dumbing down” of texts as a potential reason for declining scores on college board examinations. The CCSS cites Chall’s perspective and research as a primary source for their policy of accelerated text levels from kindergarten through high school. This study provides a critical analysis of Chall’s views of text complexity as expressed in key publications with the views of text complexity in the CCSS.

Modes of Inquiry & Data Sources
The study consisted of a critical document analysis of 11 documents, six written by Chall (Learning to read (1967); An analysis of textbooks in relation to the declining SAT scores (1977); Stages of reading development (1985); Should textbooks challenge students? (1991); Readability revisited (1995); Qualitative assessment of text difficulty (1999)) and five CCSS documents (the standards; Appendix A; Appendix B; Publishers’ Criteria for the CCSS in English Language Arts & Literacy for grades K-2 (Coleman & Pimenthal, 2011a); and Publishers’ Criteria for the CCSS in English Language Arts & Literacy for grades 3-12 (Coleman & Pimenthal, 2011b)).

All 11 documents were scanned for terms and their synonyms (e.g., text, complexity, reading level, independent reading, reading instruction). Sections of text with key terms were organized into clusters such as beginning readers, struggling readers, background knowledge, and proficient reading. Summary statements were developed for each cluster and summary statements for the CCSS and Chall were compared.

Substantiated conclusions
A summary of one conclusion will be used to illustrate the results of this document analysis. Based on analyses of first-grade textbooks from 1956 to 1962, Chall (1967) concluded that beginning readers lacked challenge. The CCSS used Chall’s 1967 analysis to conclude that textbooks have been dumbed down over 50 years, beginning with those in kindergarten. Chall’s analysis did not address kindergarten since such texts were not part of mainstream programs till the early 2000s. In Chall’s view (1985), formal reading instruction begins in first grade. Further, Chall’s 1967 analysis was the impetus for the elimination of controlled vocabulary in beginning reading texts in the late 1980s. This change resulted in substantially more difficult beginning texts (Foorman, Francis, Davidson, Harm, & Griffin, 2004), a change recognized by Chall (1999). The CCSS, however, used Chall’s (1967) analysis as reflecting current textbooks, including kindergarten ones.

Scholarly Significance
The CCSS policy on text complexity is already influencing selections of texts in American districts and states. This comparative document analysis provides much-needed information for policy-makers, publishers, and the academic community about the means of increasing capacity for increasingly complex text.

Author

• Elfrieda H. Hiebert, University of California - Santa Cruz