CHAPTER 4
Understanding Text Complexity and Text Difficulty
The concepts of text complexity and text difficulty have received much attention in discussions of best practices in English literacy instruction. This chapter contributes to the conversation by offering a critique of both concepts from an SFL perspective. It also identifies key linguistic sources of complexity that present potential comprehension challenges and describes an SFL-informed pedagogical routine for teaching with complex texts across disciplines. The chapter suggests that advanced literacy development can be maximized only when students have ample opportunities to work with and through texts of sufficient richness and appropriate complexity and are at the same time supported in these interactions.