This study examined the effects of watching gestures and lip movement on second language (English) listening comprehension. The participants were 30 high and 22 low proficient learners of English. There were six listening tasks combining two variables: modality and difficulty. The modality consisted of three types of assessments: Body (the upper…

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…

The Common Core State Standards represent the first standards document to address whether students are able to read progressively more complex texts as they progress across the grades. This article gives an overview of the three components of the model of text complexity that were identified in Appendix A of the Standards and also were the basis…