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The article discusses claims about accuracy, comprehension, grouping by level, and the limited value of strategy instruction with unchallenging texts, and questions the evidence behind the 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problem does the article focus on in students’ reading?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"It focuses on the gap between students’ current reading performance and the level needed to safeguard long-term educational and life opportunities, despite ongoing learning.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"What is the instructional-level theory described in the article?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"It is a theory claiming students learn best when taught with texts they can already read with high accuracy and comprehension, often supplemented by guided practice and strategy instruction.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"What concerns does the article raise about using leveled readers?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"It argues that leveled texts can limit exposure to grade-level language and content, lead to extensive testing and labeling, and potentially suppress learning by restricting text 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Shanahan  \nº  \nur kids do not read well.  \nAccording to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, approximately 30 percent of students read well below their grade levels—it  \nvaries a bit by age—and another 30 percent only demonstrate“partial mastery of the knowledge and skill that are fundamental for proficient work at a grade level.”1  \nI do not want to mislead. Almost all our kids are learning to read. They are not, however, learning to read well enough to safeguard their access to opportunity in 21st-century America. How well they read will have a major influence on their eventual educational attainment,2 family income levels,3 employment,4 health status,5 degree of social participation and civic involvement,6 and  \nTimothy Shanahan is a distinguished professor emeritus of urban education atthe University of Illinois at Chicago and thefounding director of its Center for Literacy. Previously, he was the director of reading for Chicago Public Schools. A past president of the International Literacy Association, he was the chair of the National Early Literacy Panel anda member of the National [Reading Panel. He writes about education at shanahanonliteracy.com. This](Reading Panel. He writes about education at shanahanonliteracy.com. This)[ ](Reading Panel. He writes about education at shanahanonliteracy.com. This)[article is excerpted with permission from](article is excerpted with permission from Leveled Reading)[ Leveled Reading](article is excerpted with permission from Leveled Reading), Leveled Lives: How Students’ Reading Achievement Has Been Held Back and What We Can Do About It by Timothy Shanahan, September 2025, published by Harvard Education Press. For more information, [please visit go.aft.org/3fw](please visit go.aft.org/3fw).  \nability to avoid or prevent a plethora of social ills.7 Reading scorestick up or down from time to time (the COVID disaster has had adepressing impact). However, the most accurate broad characterization would be that achievement has languished for more than a half century. Generation Alpha reads neither appreciably better nor worse than the Baby Boomers.  \nAfter decades of reform initiatives, how can this be?  \nAmerican children are being prevented from doing better in reading by a longstanding commitment to a pedagogical theory that insists students learn best when they are taught with—and limited to—books they can already read well. The“instructional level” or “instructional reading level” is a theoretical construct meant to describe the appropriate studenttext match that teachers should aim for so that learning will be maximized. The claim is that if students are taught with books at their supposed “instructional level,” then they will make the greatest learning progress.8 Teachers have been led to believe that this approach is research-based and that challenging students with harder books will be damaging: stultifying learning, imposing disfluency, and requiring word guessing rather than reading.9 These cautions have become so commonplace that, in my experience, most teachers are shocked to discover their flimsy evidentiary base.  \n30 AMERICAN EDUCATOR | SUMMER 2026  \nWhat if teaching with such books does not improve learning? What if it offers no advantages while encumbering teachers with lots of testing duties and students with pejorative labels—segregating them and limiting their exposure to grade-level language or content? Even worse, what if the so-called instructional level holds kids back, suppressing learning and leading tootherunfortunate consequences?  \nFrom Leveled Readers to Challenging Texts  \nInstructional-level theory holds that if students are to be successful learners, they must work with texts that they can already read with few errors (90 to 95 percent accuracy) and with at least 75 percent comprehension.* In addition, certain student-text matches are supposed tobe advantageous","cbCaivhOtdjIoZL0","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaivhOtdjIoZL0","pdf",348740,"English","# Introduction\n## The instructional-level theory\n## From leveled readers to challenging texts","[{\"question\":\"What problem does the article focus on in students’ reading?\",\"answer\":\"It focuses on the gap between students’ current reading performance and the level needed to safeguard long-term educational and life opportunities, despite ongoing learning.\"},{\"question\":\"What is the instructional-level theory described in the article?\",\"answer\":\"It is a theory claiming students learn best when taught with texts they can already read with high accuracy and comprehension, often supplemented by guided practice and strategy instruction.\"},{\"question\":\"What concerns does the article raise about using leveled readers?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that leveled texts can limit exposure to grade-level language and content, lead to extensive testing and labeling, and potentially suppress learning by restricting text difficulty.\"}]","How to Teach Reading with Challenging Texts | PDF",13]