Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments curriculum levels

Different types of assessments measure very different aspects of a book, so it's important to know what the assessment is focused on. For instance, on the Book Wizard site:

The Ear, The Eye and The Arm has a guided reading level Y (on an A-Z scale) but a lexile level of only 660.

The Watsons Go To Birmingham, on the other hand, has a lexile level of 1,000 but a lower guided reading level (U).


Lexile is measured based on vocabulary and sentence complexity, but does not consider the complexity of the ideas. Guided reading levels include comprehension and decoding skills, but not necessarily sentence structure or overall diversity of vocabulary. Grade level and interest level can be out of synch with either or both of these.

A resource that might be helpful is to look at the Common Core Standards, since they've been adopted by most states in the country. Appendix A for English and Language Arts has a pretty detailed discussion of this, as well as some examples of texts.

Common Core Standards

Hello Wren,
I am not familiar with the tests that have been spoken about so far but can tell you that they have tested my son with 'STAR.' It is so funny to me that the results differ so much. One time 2 years ago he tested reading at 6th grade; a few months after that it was 4th (although we know for a fact he was reading books at a much higher level). From what I understand, it just varies depending on how interesting my son finds the passages that are used for assessment!
I gave up even looking at those assessments - we know he's well above grade level and am not too concerned about exactly what grade that is.
Hope this helps
Aly

Going by memory, the Ramona books are 4th-5th grade level in Accelerated Reader (what our school uses), and Judy Moody is 2nd-3rd grade. So the books each kid is reading seems commensurate with the perceived reading level to me.

Our school uses STAR to assess reading ability by test (rather than by what the kids actually read), and in my experience, it greatly over-estimated DD's reading ability. Although once you get over 6th grade, it's hard to find stuff that will hold a younger kid's interest, or books that don't have an intimidating thickness or density of words on the page. (DD has become a fan of Kindle books, because you can make the words less dense.)

In addition to the page that La Texican gave you, this table gives you a good idea of what levels correspond to which grade levels: http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/guidedreading/leveling_chart.htm

Not sure how your child was assessed, but generally grade level skill is a combination of decoding/word reading ability, accuracy & rate (fluency), and comprehension. QRI (qualitative reading inventory), DAR (diagnostic assessment of reading), DRA (diagnostic reading assessment), all attempt to quantify a child's reading level by looking at each component of reading.

Generally speaking, a parent can "test" whether a book is a good fit from a decoding/word reading standpoint, by having the child read a page of text. If they read 95% of the words correctly (the first time, no self corrections), the book is at their independent reading level. 90% would be their instructional level, and anything below would be at the frustration level.

If you want to check if the child's fluency (rate and accuracy) is at or above grade level, have them read a passage of text at their independent level and count how many correct words they read in one minute. You can compare their rate to this chart: http://www.readnaturally.com/pdf/oralreadingfluency.pdf

Two other factors are stamina and context. Most reading tests by necessity use very short passages (the ones measuring lexile are longer tests, but still based on very short passages). Some students score lower on the assessments relative to the books they read, because their comprehension depends on use of context and there isn't enough for the short passages, which are often incomplete portions of stories. Other students do very well on assessments relative to what they actually read because they have difficulty sustaining attention and/or synthesizing information over longer (book length) texts.

I do think that, in a way, comfort is a part of reading ability, because it speaks to the application of reading skills in everyday situations. On the other hand, there is also interest. If you think about our recreational reading choices as adults, they are probably rarely at our maximum ability levels.