Difficult Texts and the Students who Choose Them: The Role of Text Difficulty in Second Graders' Text Choices and Independent Reading Experiences

The results of this study have some important implications. They point toward the need for a reevaluation of the assessment methods and placement criteria that are commonly used to place students in texts by matching student reading ability with text readability. This study also suggests a need to think more critically about the concept of text difficulty as a construct used both in research and in practice.

The use of text-specific comprehension questions for each student necessarily
introduced some variability into the results, although the use ... and
connectedness of text content: a retelling for a book of 50 poems is qualitatively
different than a retelling for a narrative picture book. ... writing) had a significant
influence on students' recall, independent of the influences of prior knowledge
and reading ability.