My "target" question was;
What I was trying to find for her are examples of where the lexile level and
the emotional level of the book are "out of whack". I know there have been
examples in the posts on LM_NET but without reading every one of the archive
posts on lexile/AR/Reading counts etc I cannot seem to find them. So I am
asking for examples of lexile level being questionable in terms of
the emotional level of the book.
First of all, I DO know that lexiles do not equate to grade level. But
knowing that I wanted examples that could be shown to a group of teachers so
they also would know that.
Here are the responses.
Check the lexile on John Grisham's books. That is one that is used as an
example. It is very low (6th grade, I think) but you wouldn't want an
average 6th grader to read those books.
I have always been told that popular novels like Danielle Steel and co. are
about 4th grade reading level...
TRIGGER by Susan Vaught-about a boy who is recovering from a self inflicted
gunshot wound to the head lexile is 570 (same as WHIPPING BOY) and AR is 3.3
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE lexile is 740 L (same as WALK TWO MOONS) and AR is
3.4
An example that comes to mind Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. The Lexile
for this book is 690 indicating technically it could be used from 3rd grade
on. I highly doubt a parent would want their third grader reading about a
high school freshman who was raped and the turmoil it
caused in their life.
Another example is Trigger by Susan Vaught. The Lexile for this book is
570. Trigger is a book dealing with the aftermath of a high school boy who
tries to commit sucide by shooting himself in the head and lives.
590 Byars Keeper of the Doves
620 Cooney Beloved Dearly
660 Creech Ruby Holler
790 Fuqua Darby
650 Giff Pictures of Hollis Woods
540 Hopkinson Pioneer Summer
730 Kinsey-Warnock Lumber Camp Library
610 Kochenderfer Victory Garden
890 Levy Splash! Poems of Our Watery World
630 Lisle How I Became a Writer…
NP Prelutsky Scranimals
780 Ryan When Marian Sang
650 Spinelli Loser
780 Avi Crispin
520 Bauer Stand Tall
800 Bruchac Winter People
680 Carey Wenny Has Wings
760 Draper Double Dutch
840 Ferris Once Upon a Marigold
1030 Fleischman Phineas Gage
860 Gantos What Would Joey Do?
760 Hiaasen Hoot
690 Hobbs Wild Man Island
750 Martin Corner of the Universe
690 Mikaelsen Red Midnight
670 Paterson Same Stuff As Stars
830 Seely Grasslands
870 Seidler Brothers Below Zero
820 Tolan Surviving the Applewhites
570 Hurwitz Russell Rides Again
600 Freeman Corduroy
AD 630 Adler Picture Book of Abraham Lincoln
AD 630 McCloskey Make Way For Ducklings
640 Grisham **Firm
720 Freeman Bearymore
730 Hemingway **Farewell to Arms
AD 740 Sendak Where the Wild Things Are
790 Salinger **Catcher in the Rye
800 Adler Picture Book of Lewis & Clark
830 Remarque **All Quiet on the Western Front
850 Cleary Ramona the Pest
860 Cleary Mouse and the Motorcycle
890 Bradbury **Fahrenheit 451
940 Lewis Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe
990 Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
1000 Tolkien Hobbit
1060 Clarke 2001: A Space Odyssey
1300 Alcott Little Women
The clearest example of the "mismatch" that I have come across so far is the
Newbery Honor Book "The Upstairs Room" having a Lexile of 380, which puts it
below the level of most picture books.
You can go to lexiles.com and type in almost any YA or adult book and see
lexiles of from 400 to 900 come up for books with very adult content. For
example--Gossip Girl is an 820--which falls in the fifth grade range. 400
is second grade; 900 is at the beginning of sixth grade.
Funny you should mention this... I just pulled 3 books after kids had
checked them out when I realized how misleading that darned green 4th grade
AR sticker was on these books. (We have them color-coded by level--this
predates my tenure at this school.) The 3 I found were Here's to You, Rachel
Robinson by Judy Blume, Kim/Kimi by Hadley Irwin and Stargirl by Jerry
Spinelli. I will probably donate all 3 to a new middle school library that's
opening next year. When I looked them up they all had Upper Grade
designations for interest level. The kids who are in classes which use AR
tend to just pull books by sticker rather than looking at anything else
about the book. (Drives me crazy!) I've talked a lot about finding books
that interest them but with the pressure to take lots of AR tests, they
don't really focus on that.
You may want to check out this site:
http://www.metametricsinc.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?view=mm&tabindex=2&tabid=9
6
Lexiles and emotional level of the book are not necessarily going to
coincide
Black-eyed Suzie by Susan Shaw has a 380 lexile, but is definitely an upper
middle school/high school content book.
Lexile 510 (recommended lexile for 2nd to 4th) Breathing under water by
alex Flinn recommended 7th grade and up --about date rape
Lexile 600 -- Leslies Journal by allan Stratton recommended 7th grade and
up--Date rape.
Lexile 690 Speak by Laurie Anderson recommended for 7th and up deals with
rape
Lexile 500-600 Most of R.L. stines high school Horror books
Lexiles 540-670 Michael Crighton's books Terminal man, Rising Sun, Lost
world recommended for high school
Cats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut 790 (5-6th grade lexile) recommended for high
school
Deborah Stafford
Gen. H.H. Arnold High School
Wiesbaden, Germany
deborah.stafford@t-online.de
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