I am wondering if there is an online reading assessment that will help you identify at what "grade-level" your child reads?

What is entailed in this?

When someone says my child reads at a fifth grade level....does that mean :

1)they read/pronounce correctly all words that a fifth grader would,
2)reads AND understands all words or can make good contextual guesses at what they mean,
3)reads AND understands words AND understands all the subtle nuances of story..grasps the meaning and motivations of characters and can figure out the moral of stories, or guess at plots..etc.


I am just trying to understand what is meant by grade level reading and hoping to better place my son and help him grow.

Thanks

I'm not sure about the specific details to your questions, but I do recall DS's grade 2 teacher saying that in order to qualify for a specific reading level, they had to score at a minimum percentage, and it was quite high (95%? I can't remember, but it was at least mid-90's). If I recall correctly the scoring was based on decoding, reading comprehension, and vocab.

I can tell you how the Scholastic levels are determined... it's quite interesting (we learned about this in my EA program). It's done by number of words per sentence and number of syllables per word. In otherwords, "She sat and ate a banana" would be considered a higher grade level than "I feigned dismay" ...weird, huh? I guess they have to have some kind of guideline to follow though.

My advice (I've finally, finally figured this out) is not to worry too much about grade level and instead foster a love of reading by choosing what your son is interested in, regardless of level. If you have a book that is at the right level for your son to improve his reading skills but he's not interested in it, he may become resistant. If, on the other hand, you give him a book that's about something he enjoys regardless of level, he'll grow to love reading. Then if you keep piles and piles of books in your house (lol my husband feels overrun by books) then he'll have lots of opportunity and choice.

I never understood the "reading level" thing here. Growing up (in Czech Republic) ... every year we had a list of books we HAD to read (10-15 books) ... those books were the "treasures" of our literature, starting with simpler ones for the little kids and more demanding for older kids and had to write reports on those books and then we were supposed to read a certain number of books we'd choose and write reports on those. But nobody really cared about what "level" they were. It was books we were interested in. I spent probably good 5 or 6 years reading nothing but books about aliens or native Americans (Karl May and his books about Winnetou ... for those who are familiar with them :)). It was all about finding something you truly wanted to read so you would stick with reading rather than being told what and when to read. This also meant that nobody really needed LA acceleration because they could keep themselves at the level appropriate for them.

btw ... didn't mean it in a bad way! ... unfortunately, in the US, for the most part you do need to know what level your child is because that's how things are around here ... My first paragraph is just a little vent ... because it's something that just bugs me!

CNN- I completely agree that piles of books and a love of reading is key, and we fully immerse ourselves in that philosophy! Mainly it is brute curiosity. I have decided to hold off on IQ testing for at least four or five years, but when I mentally try to figure where he fits on the curve..I keep coming across terms like- reads "x" years above grade level etc... And I'd just like to know what exactly that means.

Maybe I could just get an idea from some of you. My son is 5 yrs 2 months, and reads a Flat Stanley book independently in about 30-45 minutes. This is the most advanced chapter book he will read completely independent. I quiz him on what happened to make sure he really read. He will read like every other page of Dahl books or Narnia..but gets tired much easier with finer print and prob the more complex ideas. Will read anything science...but while these are bigger words and more complex ideas they are not nearly as long passages. From that could someone give me an approx grade level?
I did notice that when we finished reading the Narnia series together, he didn't really understand the characters...their motives...I'd hardly expect him to...he just turned five and has no idea why someone would be evil, nor any real connection with actual evil people (thank goodness). For him it was good enough to follow what happened-not why.

I just read on here of other kids reading advanced books, and I wonder if the full understanding is there or not.

I think the only way to fully know would be to test him on comprehension and word meaning, and have him read out loud and track the decoding errors. It's still hard though because how do you standardize your test? I don't think there's an exact answer. The school will do their thing, and unless you get testing materials from the teacher (reading samples, questions, etc.) it can be hard to duplicate.

If it were me, I'd google to see what grade level the book is at, and then use that as an approximation.

I know what you mean though... you hear lots of "my child reads at this level" ...but what does that mean?

Phey - this is what Scholastic says about Flat Stanley:


http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/flat-stanley

CCN- thanks. That's a good starting point. But as you said scholastic does seem to have a weird way of calculating that.

Does anyone know though if it goes simply off ability to pronounce/read, or if it goes off of ability to comprehend story lines/plots/character?

Note that "a" Flat Stanley (one of the books in the series) is different from "the" Flat Stanley (the original, unabridged book on which the series is based).

Accelerated Reader (arbookfind.com) says the books in the series are 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, or 3.3. The original is 4.0 unabridged and 3.2 abridged. Roald Dahl's books are mostly 4th grade level; the Narnia books are mostly 5th grade level.

Book leveling is an art (judgement is required), but the way books are actually leveled is a science (formulas are mechanically applied). I don't think you're going to find a satisfactory answer to your questions because of that mismatch.

Accelerated Reader quizzes mostly test recall. There's none of them that care about pronunciation - that's tested separately as a reading fluency test (our district uses DIBELS). STAR Reading (http://www.renlearn.com/sr/skills.aspx), which is what our school uses to assess reading level, does test comprehension. The reading level you get is basically "your score is at the 50th percentile for kids of that grade-and-month who were in the norming sample."

There is enormous spread in reading ability among younger kids. My DD's first grade teacher said that she had kids who tested anywhere from kindergarten to 6th grade level at the end of first.

I have used the DORA online reading test with my children, published by letsgolearn. It had flaws, like all such systems. But does a pattern of strengths and weaknesses that matches my dd.

phey, I think that most systems which categorize actual literature selection into AR levels, lexile scores, etc. are somewhat arbitrary, for the reasons that MK and CCN have illustrated.

It doesn't hurt to estimate reading level on the basis of some combination of those, I think-- but really, the only thing that matters much is where the child is at and what s/he is ready for and interested in. BECAUSE those systems are so arbitrary, I mean, they aren't really very useful.

Of course, if it's bragging rights that are on the line, then by all means... but just be aware that MOST of those are about pretty bare bones literacy, and not "understanding" beyond basic comprehension. This would be the "what" not "why" of your earlier remark re: the Narnia books.

I can't speak for others, but I have never "counted" books that my DD could technically read-- but not "understand." There hasn't been much of that, though... because she isn't that interested in what she can't understand, and she doesn't like be read to since she learned to read for herself. So when I say that she was obsessed by Tolkien, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, the Series of Unfortunate Events, Dahl, and Harry Potter at 4-8 yo, yes, I mean fully independent reading.

I have found it more helpful to keep in mind a handful of recent "favorites" read rather than trying to determine "reading level" on the basis of evaluating the CHILD. I just take a sampling of what she's been into and see where that falls in terms of lexiles. At some point it becomes problematic because interest level guides reading selections far more dramatically than reading LEVEL does. This became true for my DD when she was about 7yo. The thing that gives this away is that the child may well veer toward books with earlier publication dates (in which literacy levels are far higher for far younger audiences-- re: Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins,etc.) because they are not outstripping maturity with content that isn't appropriate.


It remains true; she's been tackling adult fiction since she was about 8-9yo, but I vet most of it for content appropriateness. Yeah, okay... so the Mary McGarry Morris binge last summer was an aberration there. Whoopsie.

There are a few sites with quizzes that will allow parents to register as homeschoolers-- you might try that with the BookIt program (which is organized by AR level, I think).

Scholastic's Reading Counts program was once free, but isn't now.

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/


They do have other good resources though, and links out to both AR and Lexile which explain the philosophy behind each one (which might answer some of your questions about the data/organization).

phey,

From my observation, I have realized that the reading grade levels are a bit inflated for elementary. I have no idea about middle or higher grades. For ex: Flat Stanley is a good first grade\second grade level book but Scholastic is showing it as 4.4. May be because a lot of kids do not develop good decoding skills by that age( beginning reading in K), they may not have patience to read it on their own but I bet most of them will understand the book if its read to them.

I would assume that when people say their child is reading at a certain level, they might be looking at these numbers only.

And different kids have different strengths, one kid might be excellent in comprehension ( comprehending 4-5 grades higher) but not a fluent decoder, other might be a fluent decoder (reading complex words) but not comprehending at that level or both. The best way to judge his to observe your child and expose him to appropriate books at his level rather than going by the norms.

I agree with this. I was shocked to see it rated at this grade level. My DS is in first grade and is only on grade level and he can read flat stanley. He finds Falt Stanley "completely inspid" though LOL.

I agree, Flat Stanley is something I would have read in maybe second grade...not 4th. By then I would have found it way way too insipid.

I assume everyone means something different when they post here, "my child reads at x level". For some it is prob a full understanding like howler karma stated...and for some I suspect it is simply they can handle pronouncing the words, and go though a paragraph of such and such book without trouble...though the self drive to read the entire book is not there.

My husband is just finishing reading 5 Levels of Gifted..after I finished it too. What we were trying to decided is how many years above grade level son is to fit it to the tables in that book. But I suspect that what parents reported to author is as diverse as what people report on this forum. I wish these milestones were better defined. Does "began reading" mean first time they notice their first word...or first time they string a whole sentence or even a whole book together?

I guess I am just trying to define all these terms, because I am a stickler for that type of thing:)

Well, I think that probably most of the parents who post here-here mean "reading" the way typical adults use the term. That is, decoding, articulating, and assessing meaning from the use of that written language.

The whole package.

Do most parents in real life use the term that way? My experience suggests not. I have known other parents to consider memorization of baby/board-books to be "reading" and others who considered phonemic awareness to be 'reading' in ways that I didn't think really crossed the threshold into actual literacy. But really, it's not my place to judge either way, so I don't.

I think that it may be hardest to know with whole language readers-- because they aren't using conventional decoding. So what becomes "reading" instead of "recognition of a memorized image?"

I think some of this relates, ultimately, to what a child can do with text in a NOVEL context. That is, can s/he manage to decode/recognize and extract real-world, independent meaning from text that s/he has never seen before? That, at least in my mind, is when true reading begins. This is what children are doing when they recognize the word "stop" (just like the stop-sign) in, say, a newspaper headline, or the instructions for the new toaster.


With emergent literacy, this is why it is often far more useful to evaluate on the basis of native behavior than on 'tested' behavior in artificial conditions. Some kids can memorize a stack of cards with Dolch entries without really 'reading' in any functional sense, and some kids can't memorize any of them, but can sound them all out without knowing what any of them mean... and some kids can read them silently and know what each term signifies.

This is something that leads early educators to be super-skeptical of placing too much emphasis on literacy as a marker of LOG-- because it's something that is so easy to hothouse in the age range 3-6yo. As a sole indication of LOG, I think (personally) that literacy is HIGHLY overrated for this reason. It's too dependent upon environment, IMO.


My DD's functional LOG seems way higher than her age at acquiring literacy (the way I define it) would have indicated. What I think was more significant, judging from ten years past that point-- is the rate of mastery. She went from c-v-c decoding to Harry Potter in way less than six months.

Now, I think a rate of literacy acquisition like that is indicative of high LOG, but far from a necessary condition for high LOG.

So in other words, I think that if you're looking for functional evidence, you don't need to have seen EVERYTHING on a particular checklist-- just any particularly striking thing that resonates firmly.

Mk13, fwiw, not all US schools go by reading levels - I think you just see it mentioned a lot because it's a number, it's something that seems quantifiable, and parents like to try to quantify. Our public elementary school measured reading levels twice each year for K-2 only to be sure that they were aware of children who were struggling or not making good progress, but they usually never tested past grade level and that all worked out ok for our kids. Children were allowed to choose the books they wanted to read, and the classes also always were reading one book together as a class.

phey, I wouldn't put much into what specific reading level your child is at this point - young children develop reading skills at very different rates, and you might find that some of your ds' peers who aren't reading much at all at his age will suddenly be voracious, way ahead of grade level readers in 1-2 years. We were always advised that the best thing we could do to help our kids learn to read was to read *to* them - hearing books read helps young children develop their comprehension. You can also ask them questions about what you read etc. We were still told to read to our children as late as 4th grade as part of their "homework" each night.

FWIW, most of the kids my kids went to school with were able to read Flat Stanley in first grade... I never paid attention to levels on books, but it surprises me that FS would be rated 4th grade? Most of my kids' friends in 4th grade were reading much longer, more complicated chapter books, things like Warriors etc.

polarbear

ps - just saw your note re reading Five Levels of Giftedness... which prompts a question - are you working your way through figuring out school placement, or just trying to get a feeling for where your ds is at? This is jmo, of course, but I'd try to listen to your gut instincts, follow where your child leads, and not place too much worry over where your child lands on the 5 Levels book charts. OTOH, if you think he needs more challenge at school, it's going to help to keep work examples and to try to get testing.

Howler Karma...what is c-v-c decoding....I need help decoding that one
I think I agree with you on the rate being more indicative. For my son, the rate was high--from simple sight word recognition to reading Lorax in a few months. But years later he is still not to independently reading long chapter books...but I think it is more an issue of leaping to the finer print and intimidation of being responsible to read an entire book by himself.

polarbear- I agree that continuing to read to him is important. Not only is it awesome bonding time, but it is a great chance to daily up his understanding of words, and also super fun for me to revisit books from my childhood. We are voracious readers around here--all of us. And we are just trying to figure him out. Not in school yet--just began homeschooling on a more structured basis (if you consider 30 minutes a day structure;). We are simply trying to figure where he is at so we can hopefully plan better for the future by plotting a trajectory. (Like are we going to have to pay for college five years earlier than normal;) ?)

The original flat Stanley books are fairly simple and quite fun. The later ones seem aimed at older kids and a bit pretentious.

Oh and it took me a while but CVC is consonant vowel consonant.

I go by the level of the books DD can pick off the shelf in the library and read cold. She needs to be able to enjoy them, read fluently (at least 60 wpm without stumbling) and understand plot subtleties. She may be able to read books at about a grade level higher, but the level at which the above is a "sure thing" is surprisingly consistent.

I have been using Fountas and Pinnel (GRL) ever since we found out that is the leveling system used by all three schools we have applied to. We were told that the grade level equivalents (for instructional level) were recently changed to the following in a handout:

Kindergarden:
A
B
C --Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You see?
D

First Grade:
E--Go Dog Go, Morris The Moose
F
G
H--A Kiss for Little Bear
I--Hi, Fly Guy
J--Henry and Mudge, Fire Cat

Second Grade:
K--Tales of Oliver Pig, Mercy Watson to the Rescue
L--Judy Moody (Book 1)
M--Magic Treehouse, Freckle Juice, Flat Stanley (Book 1)

Third Grade:
N--Catwings
O--The Boxcar Children, Ramona the Brave
P--The Fantastic Mr. Fox

I believe that Kindergarten used to go up to C etc. So, apparently expectation are indeed rising in schools. Also, sometimes there are large differences between Lexile, DRA, and GRL. And, the scholastic grade level equivalent frequently seems to be too high.

Have you tried the Ready Freddy book series? They are about the same level. (L-M, late second grade. But, in my experience easier than Magic Treehouse as for as print and complexity.)

My DD6 is in first grade and reads many books that come up in fourth-sixth grade reading lists, yet I don't say she is reading at any particular grade level. Her reading rate is exceptionally fast (faster than many adults), her comprehension is great, and decoding is a real strength. When I say she is reading at the level of a particular book, that means she reads it independently, quickly, effortlessly, and with enjoyment and comprehension. Many books she reads are in the 800-900 lexile level wherever that may fall. At that level she reads for enjoyment with no strain. If I had to pick a grade, I'd say third to fourth even though many of her books say 5th etc. Kids in our district are often high achievers so expectations may be different. My DD read Magic Treehouse in kindergarten and is now onto books like "Guardians of Ga'hoole" and "The Borrowers." With that and verbal scores in the 99.9th percentile, including a reading score of 163 out of 165 ceiling, she still isn't up for a grade skip!

We haven't tried the Magic Tree House series, because I heard it was "bad" writing. If that is true..(?) I'd rather skip on it and just wait till he is into reading Dahl completely independently. I got him Fantastic Mr Fox, and as soon as we finish the BFG (reading together) he said he would like to read Fox on his own, since it is a shorter book.

I really like to lean to better/classic writing..
I can't stand the cheap writing that was so common in early readers..ie level 0-5 DK reader type of things. Yeah, they were "leveled" progressive reads, but BLAH!

So having only second hand knowledge of Treehouse Series....am I off base?

I have never heard of Ready Freddy.

Other books he is reading now -- Magic School Bus Chapter Books, Encyclopedia Brown both of which are only OK writing in my book.

Looking at the Romana Series-is that for girls? I faintly remember reading it when I was young.

I also preferred better/classic writing... but my kids were exposed to less-than-my-ideal at school, and fwiw in the end, it all worked out ok (still does). My ds, for instance, didn't choose to read anything on his own that was "fiction" until he discovered Captain Underpants. His kindergarten teacher used to read Junie B. Jones to the class which drove me nuts! But we were able to expose ds to higher-level better qualify reading at home when *we* read to him - becuase we got to choose the books. He *heard* a lot of great books before he started choosing them on his own, and I think that, in the end, that was every bit as useful as if we'd been able to convince him to read something a little bit less Captain-Underpants.

polarbear

Meh-- My DD was avid about Magic Treehouse books for a while-- she gobbled them up like potato chips. Two or three an evening/afternoon.

I don't think that they harmed her any, since she just (for fun) polished off Jane Eyre at 13, and this is fairly typical for her. She's not a book snob, which is fine by us. She also still loves graphic novels and comics. Again-- fine. She loves to read, and it's good for her, so why not?

Beverly Cleary has a number of really delightful books at about that same level (Ramona)-- The Mouse and the Motorcycle is a great set of books. Shel Silverstein's poetry anthologies are also a lot of fun at this age, and I'd encourage you to look up Hank the Cowdog and other Roald Dahl books, too.

Once he finds what he likes in terms of genre or content, my advice is to let him decide what he wants to read and be fairly hands-off about it. Let him own it. That's the secret to making a kid a reader, IMO. Help them until they find what they can love, and then get out of the way.


PS. We LOVE the Captain. And Doctor Dog, which every member of my family can STILL recite from memory. LOL. Of course, this may tell you something about us. But maybe not, too. We also adore Whitman, Hugo, Dickens, and Shakespeare. We're just not judging print by "good" versus "bad," only by what we like and find interesting.

I don't think avoiding less stellar writing makes you a book snob;) I have this same argument with DH though. To him, reading is reading. But not to me. Not all TV watching is the same either...some is seriously brain draining while other shows are at least educational. Regardless, both need be done in moderation. Some books train you to write crap sentences. Some books elevate you. I think you need to moderate the amount of time you read crap. It may not hurt them, but it won't help them. Sure you need light reading mixed in...but it doesn't have to be terrible stuff.

Anyway, grateful for all the book recs on here. Without this awesome forum, we wouldn't have found many of the books we are reading now.

BTW, Ds started reading Mr Fox last night. My favorite thing is sitting there and watching his eyes speed back and forth lost in thought.

Love the Mouse and Motorcycle, EB White, ALL of Dahl, Silverstein poems (As well as Lafcadio, the Lion who Shot Back), the entire Oz series, Wayside School..I could go on....

Anyway, the main point is, that I was simply curious about reading level placement. I absolutely agree, that especially at this age, reading is just fun and that THE number one important thing is not to ruin that. We read aloud every night, he spends usually at least two hours daily reading by himself. We are so grateful he loves to read, because we are bookworms ourselves.
We are just happy to stand back and let it grow on its own accord.

Update:
He decided to finish Mr Fox last night and read the remaining 70 pages in 45 min. He stopped to ask me what a souvenir was (with perfect pronunciation). I was also impressed when he saw a semi-colon; he stopped and got really excited, showed it to me and read the sentence with it out loud (three times in that book--one on back cover). He then read 1/3 of a Giraffe the Pelly and Me. Then he came up with the idea to write a book report (really I think he just wanted to use the iPod in/at bedtime, which is a new rule against that). I have no idea where he learned about book reports--maybe a cartoon? It was super cute though-- typed on the iPod and emailed to me. It included what the moral of the story was.

So I'm going to go ahead and say he reads at a 3rd grade level, seeing how easy that was for him. I think he just needs confidence to tackle the longer books, as we only gave him his first fiction chapter book a little over a month ago. Before that I wasn't even aware that entry level chapter books existed--love this forum for that reason. Just ordered from Amazon Hank the Cowdog...but I think his confidence is already increased by last nights read, and that he may jump into a longer Dahl book very very soon. It certainly is his favorite author at the moment!

And now, last week, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. Confidence is something that comes on its' own time regardless of ability. We knew he could, now he knows he can.