Understanding your child’s Reading Level

Understanding your Child’s Reading Level

Reading is a highly complex process. Many schools use different methods to determine a student’s reading ability. The determined reading level is used to help teachers match books to readers and support their growth. Teachers use these levels to ensure students are reading appropriate books and then determine student growth and progress throughout the school year.

Here is a parent’s quick guide on how these book levels are determined:

Lexile Levels:

The two criteria used to determine a book’s Lexile level are:

• word frequency
• sentence length.

A text’s Lexile Framework increases by increments of 10 with 10L being the lowest an increasing all the way to 2000L. Lexile measures are a quantitative measure for text complexity. They do not address whether a book is appropriate for a child’s age.

Accelerated Reader Levels:

The two criteria used to determine a book’s AR level are:

• word difficulty
• length of a book.

These book levels are reported using the ATOS™ readability formula and represent the difficulty of the text. For example, an ATOS book level of 4.5 means that the text could likely be read by a student whose reading skills are at the level of a 4^th grader during the 5^th month of school. Please note that AR levels do not address content or themes included in the book.

Fountas and Pinnell Levels:

The ten criteria used to determine a book’s F&P level are:

• genre,
• text structure
• content
• themes and ideas
• language and literary features
• sentence complexity
• vocabulary
• words
• illustrations
• book and print features

The F&P Text Level Gradient™   is a continuum based upon the strategic actions used for processing texts leveled A–Z+. These levels also include appropriate grade-level ranges to ensure student’s read content-rich and appropriate books.

Now that you have read the data, which system do you trust for your child? Which qualities are important to you when determining the type of book your child is reading?

It is Just Right Literacy’s opinion that we must consider all the factors that go into the complex task of reading. We encourage school districts, teachers, and parents to use the Fountas and Pinnel Leveling System to ensure that all students are reading appropriate books for their skill level, as well as age level.

For more information about how to assess your child using the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System and to access thousands of appropriately leveled books please email us at: Julie@JustRightLiteracy.com.