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Thread: How (well) do reading levels work?

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    Elephant Feirefiz's avatar
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    Default How (well) do reading levels work?

    On the net I often see people, mainly Americans, refer to reading levels of their children and the literature they read. I assume they are talking about something like a Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level. We don't have anything like that. I'm sure some researchers have applied the same thing to German texts, but it's not something you encounter in real life.

    Through studying computational linguistics I am no stranger to the idea of calculating numbers from texts. However I would tend to take such a simplistic formula with a grain of salt. Then again I realize that even if its assumptions seem a bit bold on the level of a single sentence they might still work well on longer texts on average.

    Are the people who talk about their kids reading level refering to something based on formulas like Flesh-Kincaid?

    Is there a real standard?

    For what are they used in practice?

    Calculating the reading level of a text is one thing. If people talk about the reading level of their children is that an estimate based on the thing they are comfortable reading or do you test this somehow?

    How well do you think they work?

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    The Apostabulous Inner Stickler's avatar
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    I don't know how well they work. When I was in school, I think they were mostly used to keep kids from only reading books that were below their reading ability. I don't really know though. By the time I was in 3rd grade, I was reading the 7-8 level books and checking things out from the adult section of the public library.
    I don't think so, therefore I'm probably not.

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    Elephant Feirefiz's avatar
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    Do children in America often choose their own books to read for school? That might explain why such a system is more commonly used. I think the closest thing we ever did was that once in sixth grade we had to give a brief oral presentation of our "favorite book." And although we were of course encouraged to read in general and occasionally we visited the parish or school library nobody seemed to care what exactly we read.

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    The Apostabulous Inner Stickler's avatar
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    When I was in class we had books of short stories and things that we read together and did comprehension worksheets and stuff but we were expected to read so many books outside of class. There was a program called Accelerated Reader on the computers that would give the kid a short 10 question quiz on the contents of the book and often there'd be rewards for reading so many books in a month. If I recall correctly, it kept track of your reading level and you got better scores for doing well on books at the upper end of your range.

    I don't know how helpful this is in regards to your question though. I feel as though we're on a tangent.

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    Elephant Feirefiz's avatar
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    Interesting. We never had anything comparable.
    Quote Originally posted by Inner Stickler View post
    I don't know how helpful this is in regards to your question though. I feel as though we're on a tangent.
    Pretty helpful, I think. At least it could explain why it is a relatively common thing in America and largely unknown here.

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    Libertarian Autocrat Vox Imperatoris's avatar
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    Yes, I had AR Tests, too. (I actually had to take four this summer on my summer reading, just to make sure I read them.) There was a test that accompanied the program to determine your own "reading level" based on your English competence. Of course, I got "Above High School" by the fourth grade, since I just got all the questions right. I'm not exactly sure how the Accelerated Reader people determine the grade levels of the books, but I suspect they just have somebody look at it and slap a number on it based on what seems like a reasonable age to expect a child to comprehend it. The tests themselves are just simple quizzes on what happened in the book; they don't test for themes or symbolism, or anything else like that.

    Like he said, the point was to make kids read a certain number of books and make sure third graders weren't picking out books a kindergartner could read. It seemed to work pretty well for that purpose.

    ETA: As far as I can remember about the baseline reading level tests themselves, they would ask questions testing vocabulary, grammar, spelling, correct word choice, etc.
    Last edited by Vox Imperatoris; 01 Nov 2009 at 12:10 AM.
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    The Apostabulous Inner Stickler's avatar
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    Oh good lord. Vox has been on hiatus for eons and he's just barely below my postcount. This is embarrassing. Off to pad!
    I don't think so, therefore I'm probably not.

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    Yeah, I'd be surprised if there was really any legitimate quantitative means of assigning books to different "levels". They might use something like Flesch-Kincaid (which really is pretty useless) but I would imagine they don't even do that. I'm totally guessing here, though.


    Do children in America often choose their own books to read for school?
    Well, at least when I was in elementary school, and I'm guessing this is still typical, in the first few years we read short stories out of textbooks for specific grade levels, and later on started being assigned chapter books as well. But we were also fairly frequently required to stand up and deliver "book reports" on books we had chosen and read outside of class time. We also used the Accelerated Reader program described above at my middle school (approximately 11-13 years old). Or we'd occasionally get assigned some project like choosing a book and doing a diorama based on it or something along those lines.

    So, yeah, at least when I was a kid we were definitely required to do a fair amount of reading of things we chose ourselves. I don't remember if there was supervision to make sure people weren't reading books that were too easy although I'm guessing teachers probably tried to monitor the more reluctant students' choices. I wouldn't really know, since I was generally reading stuff above my grade level (just to preempt: yes yes also my penis is 12 inches long lolololol.)

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    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    I notice that on the Scholastic Book order forms my kid brings home, there's always information about reading levels, but we never pay attention to what they're supposed to mean -- just buy what he likes. That probably makes me a bad parent.

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    Oliphaunt jali's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday View post
    I notice that on the Scholastic Book order forms my kid brings home, there's always information about reading levels, but we never pay attention to what they're supposed to mean -- just buy what he likes. That probably makes me a bad parent.
    I was exactly the same way with those forms when my kids were in grade school.


    I'm reading Harry Potter today - I suppose I've never read AT my level. (I read those ghetto hustler books by Iceburg Slim when I was in 6th grade or so - my mother would have been appalled.)
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    Free Exy Cluricaun's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday View post
    I notice that on the Scholastic Book order forms my kid brings home, there's always information about reading levels, but we never pay attention to what they're supposed to mean -- just buy what he likes. That probably makes me a bad parent.
    Or, you know, the exact opposite of a bad parent.

    I've never understood the concept of "Little Billy is reading at a 4th grade level already!" since I can't honestly quantify the difference between a 3rd grade level and a 5th grade level. I think that the standardized testing that kids have to do (are they still called Iowa Basic? Probably not, I'm old) give results back in a grade level form, but how that scale is calibrated is not disclosed making the actual result useless.
    Hell, if I didn't do things just because they made me feel a bit ridiculous, I wouldn't have much of a social life. - Santo Rugger.

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    The Apostabulous Inner Stickler's avatar
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    Probably through testing. If 3rd graders across the state average a level of understanding X about a short story then one student who demonstrates approximately that level of understanding is reading the story at a 3rd grade level.

  13. #13
    For whom nothing is written. Oliveloaf's avatar
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    My kid's school does the AR thing. It's cool for a number of reasons. Any active reader is likely to be reading above the national average, giving the kid an immediate sense of accomplishment.

    The self-administered tests teach self-reliance and responsibility, and the simple ratings system makes it easy for kids to choose anything they want to read as long as it the book falls into their current range.

    My kid loves it. Of course, she's a good reader and likes the whole self-administered thing. I suspect that if a child is struggling with reading, or works better with more structure, the AR systems is problematic.

    I also suspect that a healthy dose of parental involvement (asking about the book, following up on test scores, challenging the kid to read tougher stuff) helps smooth out the process.
    Last edited by Oliveloaf; 11 Nov 2009 at 03:56 PM.
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