Timothy Shanahan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of urban education at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he was Founding Director of the Center for Literacy and chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. He is also visiting research professor at Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is principal investigator of the National Title I Study of Implementation and Outcomes: Early Childhood Language Development. Professor Shanahan was director of reading for the Chicago Public Schools. His research emphasizes reading-writing relationships, reading assessment, and improving reading achievement. He is past president of the International Reading Association. In 2006, he received a presidential appointment to serve on the Advisory Board of the National Institute for Literacy. He was inducted to the Reading Hall of Fame in 2007. He is a former first-grade teacher.

This presentation will explore whether it is better to teach students to read with texts at their “instructional level” as teachers have long been told to do or with texts at the levels of difficulty required by the Ohio state standards. On the one hand, we want to make sure students make the biggest learning gains possible and that they come to love reading, but on the other we are required to teach students to read particular levels of text. Find out what the research has to say on the issue and what kinds of instructional routines should successfully allow students to reach the new standards. Participants will learn the elements of text complexity, and how to teach reading effectively with such text.