Tired of hearing about “complex text”? Bothered by the pushy messages about “challenge”? This book is for you! Unlike the many other materials on text complexity, this one focuses on specific, comprehension skills that students need in order to really engage with text. This book will help elementary school teachers equip their students with practical tools and understandings of the structures and conventions that allow them to excel, including concrete tools, passages, games, lessons, and examples to teach anaphora, connectives, paragraph structure, gathering evidence (fiction and nonfiction), and text challenge. A final chapter specifies how to stretch students in texts while attending to their stamina, executive skills, and interests.
