Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources "Reading levels" -- how meaningful are they?

That hasn't been true for us, because 2E DS had strange patterns of strengths and weaknesses that made the test non-functional for him.

Tests that rely on retelling are terrible for him, because he has sequencing issues. We've had a history of enormous underestimations of reading level by schoolteachers (even those of good will) because the tests chosen by the district actually measured retelling skill instead of reading skill.

We work on retelling, and work to get the school to see what he actually understands in other ways, and by using different assessments.

Geofizz, I use the scholastic site as well to keep track of dd4.9's reading progress. I record the guided reading level, dra, Lexile measure and grade level equivalent data. I have found that many times the 4 don't coincide at all. However, they give me a general idea about where dd is. She started reading only this spring and is reading mostly at end of 2nd grade level no matter which scale I use. However, I recently had her assessed by a reading institute as I wanted to make sure she was okay for the teacher-recommended grade skip. The reading instructor assessed dd at grade level 1.8 to 2.8. She basically used a couple of paragraphs pulled from different books and asked dd to read. She also had dd read aloud 2 books at home and I had to fill out a survey questionnaire on how easily dd could decode unfamiliar words, reading with expression and if dd enjoyed reading the books. Even though it was a brief assessment, what I got was that there is a difference between how a first grader is supposed to attack new words vs. a second grader. The child should be guessing less and using various strategies to really read the word.

Eh.

What Val said.

I gave up using this sort of tool when Lexile recommendations for my 7yo included Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Madame Bovary.

Sure, Oliver Twist might have been fine for my particular 7yo (and was, in fact, fine for HER), but I had to draw the line at Flaubert.

It was then that I realized that such tools are probably entirely UN-helpful for parents or teachers of children who are fluent or advanced readers.

Which begs the question; why are such children forced to participate in evaluations intended to provide this kind of feedback, hmm? I digress.

We never paid any attention to levels here - partly because they never seemed relevant, partly because they were not emphasized at our children's school.

I just had to jump in though and say… um…. Dune for 5th grade? Yikes!


I wonder sometimes if there is a bit of a geographic/school-district dependence relation that impacts reading levels - Magic Tree House books are definitely 2nd grade level here and many kids are reading them by the end of first (not talking gifted classes either). By third grade very few students in the classes I've helped out in were interested in them anymore -

Best wishes,

polarbear

I'll agree with that idea, except for their Research Guide series. My eldest loved those books when he was 9-10 or so.

While the levels for any individual book may not (and most likely will not) be accurate on at least one or more of the scales used, I have found them (all scales taken together over 150+ books read) to be meaningful to track progress in the case of my dd. I find that the grade level equivalent and the guided reading level are correlated with the book's length, the sentence length, and the number of non-repetitive words. The lexile measure is more closely correlated with number of difficult-to-decode words in a text.

DD is a late reader compared to children in this forum. So maybe the scales are only valid for average to slightly above average readers. My guess is that once dd gains reading stamina, she may be able to read much higher levels as her decoding is pretty good and her comprehension is way up there. Anyway, at that point, I may stop using the various reading scales as well. For now, I do find them very useful.

I've never seen the Research Guides, I was thinking of the basic books

pbear

DD is a late reader compared to children in this forum. So maybe the scales are only valid for average to slightly above average readers.



Yes, this is what I think, too, LovemyDD.

Oh, they're great.

Mummies and Pyramids!

Pirates!

Space!

The list goes on....

I have mentioned this before....it isn't the level that is the most important thing. My ds reads books from 3rd grade level to 6th grade level for battle of the books...no problem. He doesn't like them all but most of the twelve he will enjoy. The thing that makes the easier ones tolerable is that he can go at his own pace. He read Waiting for the Magic last year (by the Sarah plain and tall author I think) and it was a sweet, sweet little book. He read it in less than two hours. Same book if it had been an assignment in class and he would have had to slowly read a chapter a day and painfully discuss vocabulary and comprehension questions...would have been torture and he would have hated the book.

What is assessed reading instructional level? High school . I don't think he needs to be taught high school books at 9 but I don't think you have to watch pacing on books that are easy and give him the highest level novels you have available (that he hasn't already read). He takes work.