Understanding Texts & Readers: Responsive Comprehension Instruction with Leveled Texts

As a relatively new K-12 curriculum supervisor, who'd previously taught middle school English, I've been reading seminal texts in the field to help me do my job better. Despite being hot off the press, Jen Servallo's Understanding Texts and Readers: Responsive Comprehension Instruction with Leveled Texts will soon be mentioned in the same breath as those already considered giants.I'd recently reread and loved her The Reading Strategies book so much that I bought a copy for every elementary grade level team in my district. I'd have bought more too if money had allowed. This new book works beautifully in concert with it.Whereas the first lays out 300 different strategies aligned to thirteen different goals on everything from understanding concept of print to writing about reading, Seravallo narrows the scope to just four different ones for fiction and for nonfiction in Understanding Texts and Readers. She shows how each of these plays out in leveled readers from J-W, their attendant teaching points, and how to best use them to set goals and grow the literacy of young readers in Parts II and III of the book.But first she lays out in Part I what these goals are and how integral they are to comprehension. Here's also where we get to know whose shoulders she's standing on. She draws not only on her experiences as a classroom teachers but also on the expertise of those who came before her. While reading The Reading Strategies Book, teachers need to look for the "hat tip" symbol for similar information due to page constraints. In UT and R, Seravallo explains her pedagogy fully and both where it converges and sometimes diverges from among others: Calkins, Krashen, Cunningham, Allington, Harvey, Miller, and most notably, Fountas and Pinnell.Part IV explores how assessment figures into instruction around these goals. This book is also replete with easy to use charts, examples of texts with a level-by-level guide to their characteristics, progression of skills charts for each of the goals, and student samples of response to literature. Seravallo also included links to ancillary materials not included in the book itself.When I ask teachers in the future whose shoulders they're standing on after a particular lesson, I'm sure to hear Seravallo's name.

Understanding Texts and Readers feels like it pulls together everything Serravallo has been working on for the past several years into one clear, very understandable book. It’s definitely worth a book study with a team of teachers or even an entire school.The information on how texts gradually become more complex in both fiction and nonfiction is ground-breaking. Fountas and Pinnell have done some of this work already in their Literacy Continuum, but Serravallo writes in a much clearer way so the readers doesn’t get overwhelmed, which is often the case when we try to digest F&P’s Continuum. She narrows the focus in Fiction to four areas: Plot/setting, Character, Vocabulary/Figurative Language, and Theme. She does the same for Nonfiction: Main idea, Key details, Vocabulary, and Text Features. She outlines how each gradually increases in difficulty, discussing the major jumps at particular levels. She then follows that up with examples of students’ written responses for each area, showing how readers of increasing level texts should respond in more sophisticated ways. The work she’s done here is eye-opening and will jump-start some great conversations about the types of instruction students need to effectively tackle each increase in levels within these four areas.Finally, her last section is very powerful in arguing against leveling kids, but instead using levels as just one way of helping match texts to readers. “Be sure to emphasize with kids that there is no such thing as a reader being leveled, and that the levels on books are just one of the many things to consider when choosing them. Never refer to children by a reading level. Correct and redirect children if you ever hear them referring to themselves as a level” (p. 214).This book is a WONDERFUL addition to the professional book canon and is destined to be a classic. If you don’t have it yet, RUN to the book store to get it.

This book came at just the right time for me. I had just finished Serravallo’s Teaching Reading in Small Groups book, which was phenomenal; I own her Reading Strategies Book, which is another must-have, and I was left thinking, “Hmmm if only there was a book that could really explain the different challenges readers encounter as they make their way up the gradient AND let me know what I should be watching for in each reader as they do...” BAM! In comes Understanding Texts & Readers, as if it was a gift from the heavens. This book is amazing, and for me, it really brings her Teaching Reading in Small Groups and Reading Strategies books together. I have learned so much about texts (Fountas and Pinnell levels J-W in fiction and non-fiction) and what to work toward with students reading books at each level to foster truly deep comprehension. The guidance is explicit, organized, and invaluable. I’ve even made myself a cheat sheet of features of each level and accompanying goals to have on-hand when I’m working with readers. I have bought and will continue to buy everything Jennifer Serravallo ever writes. She is my hero!