I agree with what others are saying -- at some point reading has to stop being about learning to be a better reader, and be just about . . . reading. Reading is a tool. For learning stuff. Once someone is reading at a college level, improving their reading level should just not be part of the agenda at all.
Also, a teacher who thinks going from 250 to 248 is a statistically significant drop doesn't know what she's talking about.
ITA! Honestly, it surprises me that lexiles would still be used as a tool for selecting books in 7th grade for *any* student (unless they were in a remedial reading program) - but I'm also coming from a background where reading levels weren't really used at all once my kids learned to read, with one exception (my youngest dd is in a different school than my older two, more traditional, and they use AR to select *part* of the books they read independently). My ds was reading and understanding college-level science etc texts bin early elementary. We too had a really tough time choosing fiction books for a short while (and I do wish I'd thought it through enough to realize there would be a chapter on reproduction organs before buying him the college-level anatomy book when he was 7... )... but what we did was just let him choose what he wanted to read - and he didn't choose fiction until around 4th grade when other kids started reading things like Warriors etc - and we let him read the same things other kids his age were reading and he loved them. I don't think it stymied his development of reading skills at all - he could already read very well! What it did do was help him see that reading could be for FUN and enjoyment... and I think that's something that you really have to balance with trying to find appropriately leveled books. I think most of us adults who love to read simply for the sake of reading don't think twice before picking up a book that is technically below the level we're capable of reading - so why should our kids not be able to?
Anyway, fwiw, my ds reads so fast that he runs out of books to read quickly... so I have spent time digging around for fiction books for him to read. He's in 7th grade, and what I've been doing this year is picking books from the AP Lit lists, as well as other interesting books I see listed on Hoagies etc. If it's a book I haven't read, I take a quick look through reviews online to see if it's something I think he'd enjoy or doesn't contain themes I'd rather he not be exposed to yet. He's really enjoyed the classics on these lists - but to be honest, I have no idea what the lexile level is on anything he's reading.
Best wishes,
polarbear
