Reading levels....
Grab books from each reading grade level and look at them and you will see a big difference. There is a difference between Sarah Plain and Tall (3rd), Beverley Cleary' Henry Huggins books (late 4th) and lit leveled at 5th grade.
But he doesn't need 2 weeks on Sarah Plain and Tall when he can read it in less than 45 minutes plus pass a factual test on comprehension and a vocabulary test. He would need another 20 minutes on lit analysis and be ready for the next book and the rest of the class is moving on to the second chapter and having to really study the vocabulary words from chapter one.
Maybe our situation is clouded by the fact that many (feels like the majority) of the children in our district are English language learners, or bi lingual or some category of ESOL. Most of the students at our school are 1,2,3 level out of a 5 level system where three is proficient and 1and 2 are below level in the standards of reading. Because they won't completely ability group...the only way to get hard enough work is to go higher.
