Okay, gotta say that's just dumb.
My son is in 1st grade. He is not going to read a 2nd grade text for fiction happily. He gets bored with the repetition, the "said Jack" over and over (to quote Magic Treehouse, the worst offender of this!) and the general contained plot. He will occasionally use a 2nd grade identified text for nonfiction but it's as a starter book to get into a topic, not the whole topic. His critical thinking skills are seriously hampered by a slow developing story that doesn't allow for discussions of metaphors, plot, character traits etc.
It sounds like DRA, as designed, is for the teacher to plan instruction for the middle. I'm happy that our school isn't using it that way!
