A Text Readability Continuum for Postsecondary Readiness

Abstract

Although high school graduates may be able to successfully navigate high school course content, they may not be prepared to handle the readability of texts they encounter in various postsecondary endeavors. The average readability of high school texts is lower than the average readability of citizenship, workplace, community college, university, and graduate admissions text collections. Previously successful students can appear to be unprepared after high school simply because their reading skills are insufficient for postsecondary texts. Students reading at the highest difficulty levels of high school texts should be able to access the majority of texts in workplace and community college text collections and perhaps as much as 75% of the texts in military and citizenship text collections. However, students reading at the level of the more typical high school texts may be comfortable with only about one fourth of the reading materials in military, citizenship, and workplace text collections and perhaps as little as 5% of postsecondary texts. A graduating high school senior who is confidently reading (with 75% comprehension) at the average level of 11th- and 12th-grade texts may enter a university 3 months later where the average text readability results in less than 50% comprehension for that student because there is a substantial gap in text demand between widely used high school textbooks and typical postsecondary textbooks. High school students should be exposed to more demanding texts in high school, and they should be provided with support for learning the reading skills necessary for reading post-secondary materials. Additionally, educators should strive to achieve better alignment between the reading demands of high school and the postsecondary world.