Blog 4: Text Complexity and Deliberate Practice

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     This chapter discussed how to help students improve in their reading skills by using the correct complexity of text and the concept of deliberate practice. The authors discussed the different types of text complexity characteristics: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative scales rate specific characteristics like word difficulty and sentence length or structure. Qualitative scales rate overall difficulty using characteristics like explicit or implicit meaning. They also discussed the three components of deliberate practice: teacher knowledge of student prior knowledge, steadily increasing difficulty, and effective feedback. These components can help students become better readers.
     One thing that I found interesting was the point the authors made about student choice. First of all, they said that sometimes it would be acceptable to let a student choose a book that might be too hard for them if they are interested in the subject and motivated to finish the book. However, they also made a point that it is not good to go to the other extreme and let students read whatever they want without guidance and feedback. I thought that this was a good point to make as I have seen teachers do this. I think that often, once students can read, teachers do not think as much about teaching reading so that students progress through levels-they just make sure students can read at the level that is required. Then teachers expect students to magically progress during the summer to the next grade level. In reality, that will not happen unless teachers mindfully continue to help students improve their reading level.

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