Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School High Lexile Level Books for young readers

Hi, I could use some help. Do you have Lexile scores at school? DD8's score isn't even way out there but I have trouble finding books for her in her Lexile. She likes Series of Unfortunate Events. I have found a few Ramona books (read them all), Little House series (not high interest for her), the Narnia books and Harry Potter. She doesn't want to read HP (who's kid IS this?? lol) and Narnia is doubtful too.

She loves funny books with strong female characters. Before her newest testing I found Lucy Rose, Sheila the Great, Harriet the Spy but now that she was retested with higher Lexile Score there are books like the Twilight Saga BELOW her level

I am going to email the teacher for suggestions. I am having the same problem with DS10. He wants to continue the Pendragon series but those are even below DD8's Lexile! Same with Ender's Game which I am sure he'd like. Of course he can do extra reading in his free time but he doesn't have any right now! Not with all this school reading (3 books at a time for various projects) I guess I should be happy because this is a way to differentiate within the class but I am frustrated.

It seems the writing is "mature content/low reading level". I need "high reading level/child appropriate content"![i][/i]

I couldn't find where you indicated your DD's and DS's lexile levels.

That said, you might have some luck going back in time, choosing 19th century authors to find suitable books at a high reading level. Has your DD read Little Women? Has your DS read any H.G. Wells?

DD10 & DD8 enjoy the Dear Dumb Diary books.

oh, DD8 is 890, DS10 is 1260.

I will try those suggestions. I remember disliking Jules Verne myself. I don't know if DS10 would be interested. He likes fantasy but when it's old science fiction there is a different kind of suspension of disbelief needed. I will take a look at HG Wells.

DD8 has not read Little Women. She lost interest in Harriet the Spy because it was "old fashioned" (what was that, the 60s?) But maybe it will be so different, like a new world and she will see it differently.

Thanks!

thanks, I didn't know what the NC meant! I did use the tool and found it returned very limited results and included the book DS was currently reading.

I got his teacher on board and she said she will keep an eye out.

Perhaps this is off track, but I'm wondering why it is important that she read books at a particular Lexile score. As she's already a strong reader, I'd say that the most important thing is reading something she really enjoys and wants to read. So, I'd focus more on what interests her and less on getting books at a particular level.

Honestly, we don't pay much heed to Lexile scores in choosing reading material. I once tried to use the Lexile Book Search to look for humor books for my 10 year old. The only thing it returned was some sort of scholarly treatise on humor - couldn't be farther from her normal interests!!

This same child, now 11, reads a lot, averaging probably several hundred pages a day. And I would say the vast majority is well below her Lexile level. We help feed her addiction, choosing things in most cases that we know fit her interests. For pleasure reading, our primary interest is to keep it pleasurable, regardless of Lexile level. We're more likely to try to sneak in some books with some thematic substance to them than to push on the reading level.

I think the issue is that the school wants her to read "in her range", which would be 790-940L, right?

If she likes fantasy Patricia Wrede has a few clean adventures within that span, starting with Dealing with Dragons (why does the lexile level of the following three books in the series drop down???).

Tamora Pierce is a bit more teenage oriented (and after re-reading the first Alanna book yesterday night I ruled it out for my son in the near future) and some of the series are in her range. The Circle books and the Trickster *might* be OK, IIRC there is little sex but (like most fantasies) quite a bit of death and mayhem.

Some of the Heinlein juveniles are in her range, but you'll need to make sure she doesn't slip into the other stuff.

Although in my experience young kids are very good at ignoring the weird stuff if it is way out there for them. It gets to be problematic when it gets closer (but not close enough) to age appropriate (reason why reading Vian's Heartsnatcher at 9 didn't scar me for life, but late Heinlein at 13... was a lot iffier).

For your son... It gets difficult to find fun stuff in that range. If he likes fantasy and hasn't read it yet the Odyssey (the real Homer) is in his range, and it was a big favorite of mine as a child. The Illyad was very disappointing after that.

And +1 to the ridiculousness of using those leveling tools to the point that kids don't get to read anything else. I mean, how many of us read daily within *our* range (which I expect would be >1600)??

the class requires that at least one of her AR (accelerated reader) tests per quarter be a book in her Lexile Level. This is not my doing! lol