What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction —
Abstract of

Chapter 15
Standards, Assessments, and Text Difficulty

Elfrieda H. Hiebert

This chapter examines definitions of text difficulty and how they are expressed in standards and assessments. The author reviews the work on readability and lexiles, and describes how models of text difficulty have replaced readability formulas. She goes on to discuss the treatment of text difficulty in U.S. national and state standards documents, and how text difficulty is used in assessments that attempt to determine whether those standards have been achieved.

Hiebert, E. (2002). Standards, Assessments, and Text Difficulty. In A.E. Farstrup, & S. Samuels (Eds.), What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction (pp. 337-369). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.