New SOL Test, Harder Thinking
Dewitz, 2013
The “New” SOL Assessment in English and Its
Instructional Implication
Peter Dewitz
Across the state of Virginia, student scores on the Standards of Learning assessment
in English declined for the 2012-2013 academic year. While the official scores have not yet
been published there is evidence from both rural and urban districts that the percentage of
students passing the English examination declined from last year to this year. If a school in
2011 – 12 reported 85% of their students passing the test, this past year the school
reported only 70% of the students passing the test. In some grades and in some schools the
decline was even greater.
The SOL test changed in a number of significant ways and the least significant way
was the use of technology-enhanced items. Overall success on the SOL test required close
reading and critical thinking. “Close reading is a very critical style of reading, one that asks
the reader to delve into the text, analyze it, determine the important ideas, consider how
these ideas are organized and developed. Close reading often requires multiple readings of
a text” (Brown & Dewitz, 2013, p. 64).
For many, close reading is a new term, but not a new concept. We have all engaged
in close reading. After that last thunderstorm toppled the large oak tree onto your garage
you engaged in a close reading of your insurance policy to see if you were covered. In
college, you read a biology text closely to determine the exact role of mitochondria in the
cell’s nucleus. When you read in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2, “The first thing we do, let's
kill all the lawyers” you had to decide if that was a literal statement of intent or a figurative
way of considering the value of a society that was less constrained by endless petty rules.
If close reading helps us understand the meaning intended by the author, critical
reading does not take the text at face value but engages us to explore the author’s intent
with a skeptical eye. Critical reading asks us to analyze and evaluate the text while
considering the biases of the author. Does this text tell all? How would another text give me
a different slant on the issues?
How the English SOL Test Has Changed
To increase the rigor of the SOL English test the developers made a number of
significant changes, and understanding how the test changed should help teachers plan
their instruction. I conducted an analysis of all the practice items available on the DOE
website and assumed that these test items were close to what the actual test contained.
Interviews with a large number of strong students in 5th and 7th grade at the end of the
academic year confirmed my assumptions and these students reported that the actual test
was more difficult than the practice tests. At least five significant changes can be found in
the new SOL test.
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New SOL Test, Harder Thinking
Dewitz, 2013
1. Vocabulary. It is not just the assessed vocabulary words that present a problem,
but also the words in the passages that are not assessed. In a fifth grade passage
students needed to know words like achievement, representative, devoted,
advancement, appreciated, stunning, diversity and treasured. Each of these terms was
essential to grasping the meaning of the text.
The test also demands that students understand words at a deeper level. It is not
enough to know the definition of a word; the reader must also know characteristics
of the concept the word represents. So at times the students have to sort words by
categories searching for common features and underlying characteristics. Thus tasty
and odorous are both sensory words, while confident and stunning have positive
connotations. Students need to know more about a word than its definition.
2. Supporting inferences. In the old SOL test the students were asked to make
inferences or draw conclusions and the correct answer was the most likely
inference. In the new SOL test the inference is often given in the question stem and
the student is asked to find the supporting texts information. “Which sentence
supports the conclusion that Bob was feeling morose?” These questions require a
much closer reading of the text, a careful analysis of the text.
3. Multiple Strategies. In the old SOL test students were asked to compare and
contrast in one question and make an inference in another. In the new SOL test two
strategies might be combined into one question. Thus a reader might be asked to
make a comparison, but one of the conditions being compared has been implied. In
another question the student might have to discover when the author first
expressed a particular value, thus combining inference and sequence.
4. Minimizing the Literal. In the old SOL test literal questions were common while in
the new SOL test these literal questions are less common and they have become
more complex. A passage might say that Mount Rushmore is a major attraction and
the correct answer indicates that thousands of people visit it every year. This
requires the reader to establish commonality between a major attraction and the
number of visitors. This is actually an implied main idea/detail relationship. Thus a
straightforward literal question requires inferential thinking.
5. Change in Perspective. In the old SOL test the questions were almost always
pitched at the established perspective of the narrator. In many stories an outside
narrator tells the story from the perspective of an observer. In the new SOL test
questions are phrased from different perspectives and these questions ask how
different characters in the story might view a problem, an event or an interaction.
Thinking Required of Teachers
The changes to the SOL test require that teachers think differently about reading
instruction and specifically how they lead discussions to develop students’ comprehension
and thinking.
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New SOL Test, Harder Thinking
Dewitz, 2013
First, teachers need to select interesting and complex text. A complex text is
necessary to develop comprehension because readers need something to think about. With
no challenge, comprehension does not grow. You can evaluate a text’s complexity by
considering the following factors. Older and mature readers should read more complex
texts. Many texts in core and supplemental reading programs do not meet the conditions of
complex texts. A text is complex because of the level of meaning, its structure, its language
complexity and the knowledge demands it imposes on the reader. The four characteristics
of complex text are discussed in Figure 1.
Narrative Text
Informational Text
Level of Meaning
A complex text has more than
one level of meaning. Beyond the
basic plot a reader can infer
themes and the author’s purpose.
The text not only presents
information, but also
includes overarching themes
and evaluative positions.
Structure
A complex text has a more
intricate structure. Multiple plots,
foreshadowing and flashbacks
make the structure more
complex.
Language complexity
A complex text might include
metaphorical and figurative
language.
Text employs multiple
structures (cause & effect;
comparison & contrast) and
means of signaling these
structures. (Think of signal
words.)
Narrative, dialogue and
informative language might
occur within the same text.
Knowledge demands
A complex text deals with
complex ideas and
interconnecting themes.
Complex ideas and
interconnecting concepts.
The writer develops
multiple concepts.
Second, teachers need to understand how texts work and that means they need to
understand the following about the texts they will be teaching.

What are the big ideas and the themes in the text? Authors imply these themes.

How does the author use text clues, details, and inferences to develop these big
ideas and themes? Remember the SOL test will assess students’ understanding of
how the details and clues contribute to the main ideas and themes.
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New SOL Test, Harder Thinking
Dewitz, 2013

What are the major inferences that a reader must make to comprehend the text?
The skilled adult reader makes inferences without even thinking about them, while
younger and weaker readers struggle. A teacher needs to anticipate these critical
inferences and pose questions that elicit them.

What are the major hurdles to comprehension for the average students in the class?
These hurdles might be difficult pronoun – noun relationships, noting semantic
equivalence between two related but different terms (horses and stallions), lack of
prior knowledge, complex vocabulary, or mandatory and voluntary inferences.
Third, the teacher needs to lead an engaging discussion and that requires posing
good questions, probing with follow-up questions to guide students’ thinking, and
sustaining the discussion to encourage and involve all students.

Posing initiating questions. Initial questions in a discussion should target overall
understanding of the text, big ideas or themes, and complex inferences. The teacher
should not exclusively rely on preset question stems, because these restrict
teachers’ thinking, reduce their flexibility and fail to anticipate the creativity of test
developers. Initial questions should ask students to summarize, analyze, apply and
evaluate what they have read. I am quite confident in saying, after writing two books
on core reading programs, that there are no existing programs or materials that ask
questions quite like those on the new SOL test.

Use follow-up questions to deepen student’s thinking. A follow-up question might ask
a student to support his or her answer, find text evidence or evaluate the comments
of another student. Use the questioning strategy of “Think-Pair-Share” to have
students discuss ideas. Debate among students builds critical thinking.

Sustain the discussion. A discussion is sustained by a number of teacher moves
including: acknowledge students’ remarks and expanding upon students’ thought,
probing for clarification, turning the students back to the text, and rephrasing the
students’ first thoughts into more elegant language. A discussion is halted when the
teacher interprets the text for the students. A discussion should never be the
transmission of information or the oral assessment of the students.
Teachers need to understand how ideas develop and are organized within a text.
They need to know how an author develops an argument, how he implies main ideas and
themes through the use of details, and how he uses specifics to imply general ideas. The
teacher must read and think critically at a high level to develop questions for a discussion
and these questions need to be written into their lesson plans.
Thinking Required of Students
Students need a new set of thinking tools not just to pass the SOLS, but also to
comprehend and think critically about texts they encounter in school, at their future
workplace or as citizens seeking to understand and make decisions in the current
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New SOL Test, Harder Thinking
Dewitz, 2013
political/economic environment. For many students, especially those who have been in
school for a while, this means giving up some old habits and learning some new ways of
thinking. This manner of thinking, sometimes called close reading, has a number of
characteristics all of which demand that the reader closely attend to the ideas in the text,
how these ideas are developed and the language the author uses to express his or her ideas.
Students have to give up a few thinking patterns that are unproductive. Some
students believe that it is better to contribute to a discussion than remain silent. This leads
to students responding strictly from their prior knowledge, offering tangents rather than
focusing on the meat of the discussion. Researchers have documented that the weakest
readers rely too much on their prior knowledge and neglect what the text has to say. Some
students focus on details or tidbits, sometimes called seductive details, when they should
be noting the more important big ideas. A text with rich sensory language can easily cause
students to be seduced by these details ignoring the arguments in a text.
In a close reading students should be less concerned with bringing their personal
experiences into play and more concerned with understanding the ideas and arguments of
the author. Close reading is less concerned with making text-to-self or text-to-world
connections and more concerned with the structure of the text. In a close discussion of
the text, exploring the ideas within takes precedence over relating the text to one’s
personal experience.
Prior knowledge is still important because new understandings can only be built on
existing concepts. In the new orthodoxy of close reading it is common to say that the
teacher should not focus or build the students’ prior knowledge. Instead the students
should work to make sense of the text on their own. This is indeed nonsense, because prior
knowledge provides the scaffold onto which new understandings are built. A teacher must
tread lightly, developing knowledge that students need, but not giving them the knowledge
that they can learn from the text.
As students engage in a close reading of a text they should be able to (from Common
Core State Standards, 2010):

Read closely and determine what the text says explicitly.

Infer main ideas of informational text and themes within literature.

Follow an author’s arguments and cite the evidence from the text to support
conclusions you draw.

Analyze the structure and organization of a text and indicate how the structure
supports the author’s purpose.

Understand how different points of view shape the meaning and the writing style.
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New SOL Test, Harder Thinking
Dewitz, 2013

Evaluate the ideas, arguments and claims of a text.

Compare and contrast two or more texts or a text and other media.
How Instruction in Close Reading Can Help
Closely reading a text is hard and does not resemble the highly engaged reading we
experience with the latest thriller or fantasy novel. Because close reading is difficult most
students and many adults do not readily take to it. Because close reading is hard we must
be very mindful of student motivation. Because close reading is intellectually demanding
we must engage students in the process only when the outcome makes sense.
Close reading must take place only when the context is right and the purpose is
clear. When students are studying Thomas Jefferson it makes sense to closely read his
Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom. When students are studying weather it
makes sense to closely study the physical processes that produce a hurricane. With a novel
like Holes (Sacher, 1999) it makes sense to closely study the intricate flashbacks in the plot.
Close reading demands that teachers focus even more on the conditions that will motive
students to engage in hard thinking.
Reading closely is a valuable tool not just for passing an SOL test, but also for coping
with important and difficult material both in and out of school. Close reading is a bit like
medicine or a diet; it is good for you. Reading should also taste good. We should not
abandon the soft and comfortable engagement with books for persona and aesthetic
reasons in the single-minded pursuit of analytic and rigorous close reading. A good reader
has multiple purposes.
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