Increasing text complexity: From narrative to authorial stance

In an optimal reading curriculum, students over the years encounter texts with increasing levels of complexity. One of the factors that affect text complexity is the distance between the content of the text and students’ own experience. Educational publishers have all kinds of ideas on how to bridge this distance in texts especially designed for students in primary or secondary education. For instance, they transform informative texts into narratives by adding a narrative layer with fictional or historical characters, or they frequently address the reader. In this paper, I will address these and other choices educational publishers make, discuss some research findings on the accompanying effects on students’ text comprehension and appreciation, and raise questions about the reading curriculum that is necessary to help students deal with texts with an authorial stance.