[LM_NET] GEN: Follett and Lexiles Info./hit rate

[Katrina Clift <katclift@COMCAST.NET>]

I was able to tap into money through my special education director for NCLB
monies.  She considered lexiles as directly related to literacy and was
supportive in funding!  If you are in Oregon, the Oregon Department of Ed
has adopted lexiles.  The student lexile comes on their student test data.
This helped in getting dollars!

Follett was terrific!  I'm still using old zip drives with old computers so
I exported my collections onto a zip disk, called them to double check
information, and sent off the forms that I printed from the Follett website
with my purchase order!  I sent it in before school was out in June and when
I got back this fall I received a cd and a huge pile of shelf order lexile
labels.  Loading the cd was a snap.  I had a 10,700 out of 15,000 titles hit
rate in one school.  The other had 5,000+ out of 7,000 titles.  It was worth
the money to me. Volunteers are putting the sticker inside the front cover.
You can ask for lexiles with your Follett order!

I showed the teachers several books from low to high lexile level.  Snickets
come out around 1000 and one of Tom Clancy's was 700ish.  When they saw some
of the picture/everybody books with higher lexile numbers they were
surprised!  Everybody books are truly for everybody!

So far I have used the lexiles with my lower level readers and my highest.
I show them how to search OPAC for their interests and lexile range.
REMEMBER any "leveling" program does not consider maturity, interest, etc.
And I do tell the kids to try out of their range if they really want the
book!  I use lexiles only as one more tool in our reading package.   If
anyone has suggestions for other ideas, please let me know.  I will post a
hit if people are interested.  Most of my research about lexiles led back to
the www.lexiles.com website, but I'm still looking!  Power V is one of the
resources on lexiles.com which is vocabulary for teachers to teach about one
particular book.  That book list is short right now, but it is growing!

Katrina Clift
Columbia City Elementary
Lewis & Clark Elementary
St. Helens, OR  97051
katclift@comcast.net

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