Calls for empirical investigations of the Common Core standards (CCSSs) for English Language Arts have been widespread, particularly in the area of text complexity in the primary grades (e.g., Hiebert & Mesmer "Educational Research," 42(1), 44-51, 2013). The CCSSs mention that qualitative methods (such as Fountas and Pinnell) and…

Standards for literacy in the twenty-first century raise the bar on the complexity of texts and the tasks for which they are used. The strengths and limitations of contemporary approaches to text complexity are discussed with respect to major points raised in the six articles in this special issue. In addition, four features of text that are of…

Examines the variables experienced teachers of deaf children use to make decisions about the difficulty of a text for use by their students and how effective teacher judgment actually is in determining text difficulty. (EKN)

Readability formulas have varied uses. In education they are used to match children's reading ability to the difficulty level of material, select stories and books for classroom use and for individual students' particular needs, select textbooks and other reading materials, aid educational research, and check reading materials of newly literate…

Reports on a study which attempted to determine the reading level of 70 filmstrips with captions that form logical sequences. Results indicate that the classroom teacher might want to use readability formulae in planning the use of filmstrips. (Author/SA)