Re: AR level of "Scorpions"

[Judy Meadows <psj000@MAIL.CONNECT.MORE.NET>]

At 11:02 AM 11/29/00 -0600, you wrote:
>I was dismayed to see that the AR ATOS reading level for Myers's book
>"Scorpions" is 3.7.  I talked with Renaissance about it and was told that
>reading levels are determined by sentence length and word length and content
>is not taken into consideration.  I am concerned about this since parents
>complain more about content of a book than the words or sentences.

I am finding out that assigning levels is somewhat tricky, myself.  I am
trying to add a number of first grade level books by making tests, and find
that my own common sense and "feel" for a book has to come into play
frequently.  I can't use the formulas that I have found.  The levels in the
cataloging sometimes seem "off."  Many picture books are level four
reading, but would appeal mainly to K-3 children as read-aloud books.

In AR, I haven't switched to ATOS and I think that Scorpions is a level
four book by the old system.  It is over in my upper level section and
probably wouldn't appeal to third graders anyway.  I think a 6th grader
checked it out yesterday.

On problem I have is that the Mark Twain Award nominees are in level three,
four, five and six.  The students who test at a higher level don't want to
read them because of this.

Judy
__________________________
Judy L. Meadows
K-12 Librarian
Verona R-7 School District
101 E. Ella Street
Verona, Missouri  65769
psj000@mail.connect.more.net

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