Text Selection Guidelines
Text Selection Guidelines
IN YEARS 4 TO 8
One of the most important tasks for you as a teacher is selecting appropriate texts to use with
your students.
Teachers need to choose tasks and texts that will reflect their students lived
experiences and support their development of literacy as they develop the
knowledge and understandings required in the various areas of the New Zealand
Curriculum.
The New Zealand Curriculum Reading and Writing Standards, page 7
When selecting texts for learning across the curriculum, a key consideration is their relative difficulty for
your students. Many series, such as the instructional series1 provided by the Ministry of Education, are
accompanied by information on reading year levels. However, when you are selecting texts from a wide
range of sources, many of the texts will not come with this information.
These guidelines have been designed to help you with such texts. They support you to:
identify the characteristics of the texts that will support or challenge your students
consider specific approaches and deliberate acts of teaching to address the challenges identified
in the texts.
WKH,QWHUQHW
FKDSWHUERRNV
QHZVSDSHUV
QRQFWLRQDQGUHIHUHQFHERRNV
magazines
Terms like hard or easy are always relative ... A book is easy or difficult only
in terms of a particular reader or even a group of readers.
Fountas and Pinnell, 2006, page 2
The instructional series include Ready to Read, Junior Journal, School Journal, Connected, School Journal Story Library,
and the electronic storybooks. Reading year levels are listed in their inside front covers and in the teacher support
materials, which also include text characteristics. See Curriculum Update 3 (see page 16) for further information on
these series.
In order to select and use appropriate texts for your students, you will need to draw on your detailed
understanding of your students individual learning needs, skills, interests, and knowledge both of texts and
of the world. You will also take account of each students identity, language, and culture.
The texts you select for your students will be used for a wide range of purposes for example, to
access information and ideas related to a particular curriculum area or to foster students critical literacy.
Occasionally, you might deliberately choose a text that you know will challenge some students, in which
case you will need to plan plenty of extra support, such as a shared reading approach followed by repeated
readings of the text.
1.
2.
At the top of the framework, write the title and author and, if appropriate, the source of the text.
Texts can often be used to support learning in several curriculum areas or at more than one
curriculum level. You will have already skimmed the text to assess its suitability for the topic that
your class is working on. In the space provided, identify the curriculum area in which you intend to
use the text with your students and the curriculum level they are working at.
3.
In the box beside each set of characteristics, write your estimate of the reading year level that is a
best fit for those characteristics.
You may wish to make brief notes about particular text characteristics that may be either supportive or
challenging for your students. This will help you to decide how best to use the text with your students.
4.
Taking all your estimated levels and notes on particular characteristics into account, make a
decision on the most appropriate overall reading year level for the text.
At times, this will be an average of your estimated reading year levels for the different sets of
characteristics. At other times, you may decide to weight some characteristics more heavily than
others. Use your knowledge of your students to decide the relative importance of the supports and
challenges that you have identified in the text.
Sometimes your estimate of the difficulty of a text may place it either well above or below the
reading year level of the students you intend to use it with.
If the text is very challenging, you will need to plan a high level of support for your students (for
example, using a shared reading approach and modelling ways to address particular challenges
such as technical vocabulary or complex sentence structures).
$VVHVVLQJWH[WGLIFXOW\LVQRWDQH[DFWVFLHQFH2SLQLRQVPD\GLIIHUDERXWWKH
reading year level of a text. When literacy leaders and teachers work through
WKHIUDPHZRUNWRJHWKHUWKLVSURYLGHVYDOXDEOHSURIHVVLRQDOOHDUQLQJDERXW
factors and text characteristics that may support or challenge their students.
Reading
year level
Notes
Age appropriateness
Consider:
age of the main character(s)
prior knowledge assumed by the text
maturity required to deal with the themes
familiarity of contexts, settings, and
subject matter
likely interests and experiences of readers.
Complexity of ideas
Consider:
implied information or ideas (requiring
readers to infer)
irony or ambiguity
abstract ideas
metaphors and other figurative or
connotative language
technical information
support from illustrations, diagrams,
graphs, and so on.
Vocabulary difficulty
Consider:
unfamiliar vocabulary
technical and academic terms, nonEnglish words, and proper nouns
sentence-level and/or visual support
contextual clues
the use of a glossary or footnotes.
Estimated reading
year level:
Notes:
Available at http://literacyonline.tki.org.nz/Literacy-Online/Student-needs/Planning-for-learning
EXAMPLE 1
Reading
year level
Notes
Age appropriateness
Consider:
age of the main character(s)
prior knowledge assumed by the text
maturity required to deal with the themes
Complexity of ideas
Consider:
implied information or ideas (requiring
readers to infer)
irony or ambiguity
abstract ideas
metaphors and other figurative or
connotative language
technical information
support from illustrations, diagrams,
graphs, and so on.
$EVWUDFWLGHDRI FRLQFLGHQFH
Consider:
flashbacks or time shifts
narrative point of view
mixed text types
connections across the text
examples and explanations
competing information
unattributed dialogue
use of headings and subheadings.
length of paragraphs
Vocabulary difficulty
1RGLIFXOWWHFKQLFDOWHUPV
Consider:
unfamiliar vocabulary
technical and academic terms, nonEnglish words, and proper nouns
sentence-level and/or visual support
contextual clues
the use of a glossary or footnotes.
Estimated reading
year level:
Notes: Although
EXAMPLE 1
EXAMPLE 2
Title and source: Strange Creatures: Chapter One: Out of Control (from Skyrider Chapter Books, 1999)
Author: Pauline Cartwright
Factors affecting text difficulty
Notes
Age appropriateness
Consider:
High interest
4-5
Complexity of ideas
Consider:
Implied ideas: Astra is the support ship; Zimm and Tarek are
from different planets; both are missing home
technical information
support from illustrations, diagrams,
graphs, and so on.
Consider:
flashbacks or time shifts
competing information
length of paragraphs
Short paragraphs
unattributed dialogue
use of headings and subheadings.
Vocabulary difficulty
Consider:
unfamiliar vocabulary
technical and academic terms, nonEnglish words, and proper nouns
Estimated reading
year level:
EXAMPLE 2
EXAMPLE 2
EXAMPLE 3
Title and source: Logging Native Forests: Conflicting Views (from Te Ara The Encyclopedia of NZ)
Author: Nancy Swarbrick
Factors affecting text difficulty
Age appropriateness
Consider:
age of the main character(s)
prior knowledge assumed by the text
maturity required to deal with the themes
Complexity of ideas
Consider:
implied information or ideas (requiring
readers to infer)
abstract ideas
metaphors and other figurative or
connotative language
irony or ambiguity
Notes
89
technical information
competing information
length of paragraphs
unattributed dialogue
use of headings and subheadings.
89
Vocabulary difficulty
Consider:
unfamiliar vocabulary
technical and academic terms, nonEnglish words, and proper nouns
89
78
Estimated reading
year level:
Because of the many unfamiliar words, some long and complicated sentences, and
the large amount of detail compressed into a short text, this will be challenging for most of
my yr 78 students. Best used with a shared reading approach and modelling of appropriate
strategies.
Notes:
EXAMPLE 3
curriculum level
age appropriateness
complexity of ideas
structure and coherence of the text
syntactic structure of the text
vocabulary difficulty
length of the text.
These factors are linked to the descriptions of the key characteristics of texts described in the National
Standards for reading. These descriptions show how the texts at each successive level become more
complex in terms of content and theme, structure and coherence, and language. The descriptions have
been carefully developed to guide teachers decisions as they select appropriate texts, not just for reading
instruction but for all curriculum tasks. (The New Zealand Curriculum Reading and Writing Standards, page 12)
The factors are often interrelated, and it is generally the balance of the supports and challenges they
present as a whole that determines the reading year level.
Curriculum level
The content of a text may be appropriate for the level of the New Zealand Curriculum that your students are
working at, but its language, structure, and complexity may give it a higher level of difficulty. In this case, you
may still decide to use the text, but you will need to plan a greater level of support for your students.
Age appropriateness
You will need to decide whether the content of the text is suitable for the age of your students. You could take
account of factors such as:
(continued overleaf)
11
Complexity of ideas
This includes factors such as:
Assessing text difficulty in relation to this set of factors must take account of the following key characteristics
of texts identified in the National Standards.
Year 4
Years 56
Years 78
12
Assessing text difficulty in relation to this set of factors must take account of the following key characteristics
of texts identified in the reading standards.
Year 4
Years 56
Years 78
complex layers
of meaning, and/
or information that
is irrelevant to the
identified purpose
for reading (that is,
competing information),
requiring students to
infer meanings or make
judgments
non-continuous text
structures and mixed text
types
13
sentence length
the balance of simple, compound, or complex sentences
incomplete sentences
nominalisation (the use of a noun where a verb or adjective would be simpler and more direct, for
example, Her investigation of the project was finished versus She had finished investigating the
project)
use of the passive voice
repetition of words or phrases
changes in verb tense.
Assessing text difficulty in relation to this set of factors must take account of the following key characteristics
of texts identified in the reading standards.
Year 4
some compound and complex
sentences, which may consist of two
or three clauses
Years 56
sentences that vary in
length and in structure
(for example, sentences
that begin in different
ways and different kinds
of complex sentences
with a number of
subordinate clauses)
Years 78
!entences that vary in
length, including long,
complex sentences
that contain a lot of
information
adverbial clauses or
connectives that require
students to make links
across the whole text
14
Vocabulary difficulty
This includes factors such as:
unfamiliar vocabulary
technical and academic terms
non-English words
proper nouns
the extent to which photographs, illustrations, graphs, maps, diagrams, and other visual features will
help to clarify challenging vocabulary
the extent to which contextual clues and information at sentence level and the use of a glossary or
footnotes will help to clarify challenging vocabulary.
Assessing text difficulty in relation to this set of factors must take account of the following key characteristics
of texts identified in the reading standards.
Year 4
some words and phrases that are
ambiguous or unfamiliar to the
students, the meaning of which is
supported by the context or clarified
by photographs, illustrations,
diagrams, and/or written
explanations
Years 56
a significant amount
of vocabulary that
is unfamiliar to the
students (including
academic and contentspecific words and
phrases), which is
generally explained in
the text by words or
illustrations
Years 78
words and phrases with
multiple meanings that
require students to
know and use effective
word-solving strategies
to retain their focus on
meaning
academic and contentspecific vocabulary
Particularly for students who do not read fluently, length alone can be a formidable
obstacle.
Grobe, 1970, quoted in Graves, 2003, page 7
However, longer texts may sometimes include more illustrations and examples. These may help to
explain and clarify the information, thus making the text easier to understand.
Published 2012 for the Ministry of Education by Learning Media Limited. Copyright Crown 2012 except for pages 5
(copyright Fairfax Media NZ 2012), 78 (copyright Pauline Cartwright (text) and Lorenzo van der Lingen (images)
1998), and 10 (copyright Crown 2009). All rights reserved. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
ISBN 978 0 7903 4030 2
Item number 34030
15
Readability formulae
These are often computerised. They can be divided into counting
formulae (which count characteristics such as word and sentence length)
and counting and comparing formulae (which count characteristics in
conjunction with calculating the familiarity of words in the text).
Readability formulae are generally consistent and accurate, in that
any person or computer applying the formula will get the same score.
However, a readability measure alone can give flawed information because
it does not, for example, take account of a texts theme, concepts, and
ideas, which may be suited to an older or more sophisticated audience.
16