Re: AR: Reading Levels

[Mary Simmons <mbsimms@HOTMAIL.COM>]

Sorry gang but I must have missed a few of the discussions on the new AR
reading levels.  My English teachers and I are shocked at some of the new
levels assigned by ATOS.  For example, The Color Purple is now  4.0,
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil 6.2, A Time to Kill by Grisholm 5.2,
Night Kites by M. E. Kerr 4.3, etc.  We teach Night at the tenth grade level
and now the ATOS is 4.8! I find that the total lack of consideration of
content is irresponsible considering that in the REading Renaissance
Workshops our teachers attended two years ago they were told that students
must read in their zpd.  At my daughters school the zpd is written in
stone--they dare not read outside their range.  My daughter's range is 6.2
and up.  Now with the new ATOS level at her school, she will be blocked out
of the majority of marvelous children's literature. Do I want her to read A
Time to Kill?  Not quite yet.  But not all teachers are familiar with all
books and I could see some disasters in the making. The kids at the middle
school will be blocked from reading almost their entire collection.  At my
school we just chuckled at some of these ridiculous levels (The Crucible
4.9).  I am going to meet with the English teachers and decide whether we
want to switch back to the old program.  Does anyone else share this concern
about the new levels?

Mary B. Simmons
Media Specialist
Currituck County High School
mbsimms@hotmail.com


>From: "Anderson, Julie LHS-STAFF" <AndersonJ@ISSAQUAH.WEDNET.EDU>
>Reply-To: "Anderson, Julie LHS-STAFF" <AndersonJ@ISSAQUAH.WEDNET.EDU>
>To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
>Subject: Re: AR: Reading Levels
>Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 13:52:44 -0700
>
>This is why I'm hoping the new ATOS readability scoring will be more on
>target.  For those of you who haven't heard of the ATOS, Advantage Learning
>has developed a way to determine reading level by using the entire text of
>a
>book in order.  I switched over to the ATOS levels last spring when I was
>beta testing version 5.12.  It seems to be more accurate.  I believe ATOS
>is
>only available with that version, so you'll have to buy it.
>
>Julie Anderson, Librarian
>Liberty High School, a National Blue Ribbon School
>Renton, WA
>(425) 837-4901     andersonj@issaquah.wednet.edu
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Lotta Books [mailto:okbookwoman@IVILLAGE.COM]
> > Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2000 1:48 PM
> > To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> > Subject: Re: AR: Reading Levels
> >
> >
> > We must all be on the same wavelength at this time of the
> > school year! At the request of my very understanding
> > Principal, I did a presentation for my faculty just yesterday
> > on AR and related issues.
> >
> > One of the most pressing issues was that of Reading levels of
> > AR books. I showed the teachers two passages that I had taken
> > from the very same book. I used a little program that I have
> > that does readabilities. The first passage came out at 2.6 on
> > the Flesch-Kincaid Readability formula. The second passage
> > came out at 9.4.
> > I asked the teachers, "Now what reading level is this book?"
> > I hope I made the point. We base too many restrictions and
> > decisions on the readability of books. It's just not a stable
> > criteria!
>
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