Understanding Texts & Readers: Responsive Comprehension Instruction with Leveled Texts

"Understanding Texts & Readers makes comprehension make sense. In it, Jennifer Serravallo narrows the distance between assessment and instruction. She maps the four fiction and four nonfiction comprehension goals she presented in The Reading Strategies Book to fourteen text levels and shares sample responses that show what to expect from readers at each. Jen begins by untangling the many threads of comprehension: Levels, engagement, stamina, the relevance of texts, and much more. Then level by level she: - calls out with precision how plot and setting, character, vocabulary and figurative language, and themes and ideas change as fiction across levels - specifies how the complexity of main idea, key details, vocabulary, and text features increases in nonfiction texts - points out what to expect from a reader as text characteristics change - provides samples of student responses to texts at each level - shares progressions across levels to support instructional planning"--