Barriers to Bridges: Helping Every Reader Access Complex Text

For years, our classrooms ran on leveled libraries, guided reading groups, and the idea that every child needed a “just-right” book. And for a long time, that felt comforting. Predictable. Safe. Kids were happily reading their Level Ks or Ms or Ps, and teachers felt like they were doing exactly what they were told to do.

But then the shift happened.

Suddenly, we were asked to put the same grade-level text in front of every student. No more separate piles. No more color-coded bins. No more matching kids to levels that quietly (and unintentionally) tracked them into fixed paths.

And teachers—understandably—looked at these complex texts and thought:

“How on earth am I supposed to teach this to all of them?”

Because this shift is not small. It’s seismic.

We moved from a world where we lowered the text to fit the reader to a world where we raise the reader to meet the text. And that requires a completely different way of thinking, planning, and believing.

The Myth of “They Can’t Do It”

When teachers say the text is too hard, I know they aren’t doubting their students’ intelligence or potential. Teachers say this because they have spent years watching kids struggle, through no fault of the teachers or the kids.

They watched students:

• read books that were far too simple to build knowledge

• rotate through centers where everyone was always doing something different

• practice skills in isolation until everyone was exhausted

• take state tests that bore no resemblance to the leveled texts they practiced on

And after all that effort, the hours, the centers, the TPT downloads, the color-coded rotations, students still weren’t able to demonstrate proficiency.

So, teachers did what any reasonable person would do: they made meaning out of their experience.

NOT because they didn’t care. NOT because they weren’t skilled. But because the system conditioned them to expect failure and to interpret that failure as evidence of incapacity.

But what if it wasn’t the teacher? What if it wasn’t the kids?

What if it was the method? What if we were preparing students for comfort—but not for the complexity the world was about to hand them?

And if that’s true, then one small shift in approach can change everything.

This is where the magic begins.

Teaching Into the Text, Not Around It

In leveled-text systems, we were trained to work around complexity. Now, our job is to walk students straight into it, but with scaffolds, support, and strategies that let them feel successful.

The text stays the same. The pathway in changes.

And that pathway begins with knowledge.

Build Background Knowledge (This Isn’t Cheating, It’s Teaching)

Background knowledge is one of the strongest predictors of reading comprehension we have. Students don’t enter a text neutrally—what they already know shapes how much they understand, how quickly they understand it, and how deeply they can think about it. When readers lack knowledge about the topic, the text feels harder, the cognitive load skyrockets, and working memory gets overwhelmed. Even highly skilled decoders can struggle if they have no framework for attaching meaning to what they’re reading.

Knowledge gives students something to connect new information to. It allows readers to make inferences, follow complex ideas, and build a coherent mental model of the text.

Sharing essential information before reading is not “cheating." It’s giving students what expert readers automatically bring to every text—context.

Background knowledge is not a bonus. It is the foundation.

The key is to share just enough to open the door.

This might include:

• a compelling essential question that frames the reading

• a quick explanation of a historical moment

• a visual or short clip to anchor the content

• a 60-second concept explanation

• a shared experience or analogy that connects the text to their world

This is not the “give everything away” model. This is the empower them to enter the text with curiosity and grounding model.

Without background knowledge, students are being asked to climb without footholds. With it, they begin the ascent already halfway up the mountain.

Teach Vocabulary That Gives Students Power, Not Lists

Vocabulary isn’t just a list of words—it’s the gateway to understanding. Students can decode every word on the page and still have no idea what the text is actually saying if the key concepts are unfamiliar. The research is clear: readers with stronger vocabularies comprehend more because they have the language tools to interpret, connect, and infer. And while we can’t possibly teach every challenging word in a grade-level text, we can teach the words that matter most—the ones that unlock big ideas, the ones that appear across content areas, and the ones that help students see relationships between concepts.

Effective vocabulary instruction goes beyond definitions. It helps students understand shades of meaning, how words relate to each other, and how morphology gives them power to unlock unfamiliar terms on their own. When students learn how words work, not just what they mean, they gain independence. They become readers who don’t get derailed by complexity but instead lean into it with confidence.

We cannot possibly pre-teach every hard word in a complex text. And we shouldn’t.

Our job is to teach the right words:

• words that unlock meaning

• words that appear again and again across texts

• words that form concept clusters

• morphology structures that give students tools far beyond a single lesson

And this is where routines matter.

Semantic gradients help students see shades of meaning. Frayer models go beyond definitions to rich conceptual understanding. Morphology instruction lets students break apart words and build flexibility.

When we teach vocabulary this way, we aren’t filling buckets. We’re lighting pathways.

Kids don’t need every word defined. They need a lens for how language works.

Model How to Read Hard Things

One of the biggest misconceptions is that if kids struggle with grade-level text, we need to replace the text.

No. We need to show them how to read it.

Students don’t automatically know what skilled reading looks or sounds like—especially when the text is complex. Fluent reading is not just accuracy and speed; it’s phrasing, tone, attention to punctuation, and the ability to make sense of dense ideas in real time. When teachers read aloud fluently, students gain a blueprint for how to navigate sentences that twist, stretch, and layer meaning in ways their independent reading may not yet allow.

Think-alouds take this a step further. They make the invisible work of comprehension visible. When we pause to say, “Here’s where I’m confused,” “This sentence is doing a lot, let me slow down,” or “I’m noticing the author is shifting ideas,” we are teaching students what proficient readers actually do—monitor understanding, repair missteps, and make intentional decisions about how to move through the text. These small moments remove the mystery from complex reading and replace it with strategy. Once students hear your thinking, they begin to develop their own.

Students rarely struggle because they aren't capable. They struggle because they get lost in text. We give them a roadmap. We model how to do it.

Your modeling becomes their inner voice.

Use Scaffolds That Support Thinking, Not Substitute for It

A scaffold is not a shortcut. A scaffold is a bridge.

We scaffold because complex text is where the real learning lives, rich vocabulary, sophisticated syntax, deeper ideas, and knowledge that actually moves students forward. Scaffolding is what allows every learner to access that richness without being overwhelmed by it.

When we scaffold, we aren’t lowering expectations. We are removing barriers. We’re giving students temporary supports (models, prompts, sentence frames, guided questions) that help them do work they would not yet be able to do independently. Over time, those supports fade, and the student is left with stronger muscles, more confidence, and a clearer sense of themselves as a capable reader.

The goal of scaffolding is simple: keep the text the same, and change the pathway in. It’s how we honor the integrity of grade-level materials while still meeting students where they are and moving them forward. And the right ones: purposeful, tightly aligned, give students access without removing rigor.

This might include:

• targeted sentence frames

• purpose-driven graphic organizers

• partner talk with structured roles

• guided prompts to focus their attention

These scaffolds don’t make the task easier—they make it doable.

We are clearing a path, not lowering the destination.

Write to Make Thinking Visible

Writing is the moment instruction sticks.

Writing isn’t something we tack on at the end of a lesson, it’s one of the most powerful tools we have to build understanding. When students write about a text, they’re forced to slow down, sort through ideas, choose what matters, and make meaning explicit. Writing turns passive reading into active thinking.

A student can nod along during a discussion and still only half-grasp the text. But the moment they have to put their understanding into a sentence, cite evidence, summarize a section, explain an idea, they confront gaps they didn’t realize were there. Writing demands clarity. It pushes students to connect ideas, refine their thinking, and construct a coherent mental model of the text.

Simply put: If you want to know whether a student understands something, ask them to write about it.

Writing is comprehension made visible and stronger.

I have never seen a student write their way through a text without understanding it more deeply than when they began.

Whether it’s:

• a sentence-combining exercise

• a one-paragraph written response

• a summary

• citing evidence

• a constructed response

writing forces coherence.

When students write, they move from “I sort of get it” to “Here is what it actually means.”

What Happens When We Change the Way We Teach?

This is the part that keeps me doing this work: when we change the way we teach, students rise. They rise higher than we predict. They rise in ways that make us stop mid-lesson and rethink everything we thought we knew about what they were capable of. And when we shift our thinking from “They can’t do it” to “What if they can?”—everything opens.

I see it every day.

I see students who used to shrink during reading now sit up straighter because, for the first time, they can enter the text. I see kids who were years below level suddenly debate themes, explain metaphors, or defend interpretations with a fire we never saw in the leveled groups. I see students who once scanned the room to avoid being called on now raise their hands first. They want to read. They want to belong in the complexity.

But even more than that, I see teachers change.

I see teachers who once planned elaborate rotation charts finally exhale. Teachers who once blamed themselves—or blamed the kids—slowly let go of that story. Teachers who spent hours differentiating texts for each group now realize they can spend their time teaching into one rich text instead of planning around ten simplified ones.

And then it happens—the moment that never gets old:

A teacher looks at their class, at the very students they once worried about, and they whisper:

“Oh my gosh…they can do it.”

And the whole room shifts.

Belief walks in. Possibility walks in. A new identity enters—not just for the students, but for the teacher.

Because the truth is, it was never that students couldn’t handle complex text. It was that they were never given the chance to try.

Once they have the supports and scaffolds, the story changes. The teacher changes. The classroom changes. The trajectory changes.

This is the moment I live for—the moment a teacher’s entire understanding of instruction realigns around one idea:

Maybe it was never about ability. Maybe it was about access. And what if—truly—they can?

That is where the magic happens

A Question for Your Sunday

To all my teachers out there who have lived or are living in the leveled-text world, if you’ve watched your students struggle despite your best effort, if you’ve been told to differentiate yourself into exhaustion, I want you to ask:

What if the kids were capable of more this whole time? What if we taught differently? What if everything changed?

Imagine the bridges we could build.

When we know better, we teach better!

See you next Sunday.

References

Catts, H. W., & Kamhi, A. G. (2017). Reading comprehension is not a single ability. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 48(2), 73–76.

Duke, N. K., & Pearson, P. D. (2002). Effective practices for developing reading comprehension. In A. E. Farstrup & S. J. Samuels (Eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction (3rd ed., pp. 205–242). International Reading Association.

Kintsch, W. (1998). Comprehension: A paradigm for cognition. Cambridge University Press.

Moats, L. C. (2020). Teaching reading is rocket science (2020 ed.). American Federation of Teachers.

Shanahan, T. (2019). Reading comprehension is about more than strategies. Shanahan on Literacy.

Wexler, N. (2019). The knowledge gap: The hidden cause of America’s broken education system—and how to fix it. Avery.