I’m not a fan of book “leveling” through the use of Lexile measures — in other words, restricting book choice by students based on reading test results.
Here are my choices for The Best Posts & Articles About Why Book “Leveling” Is A Bad Idea:
I wrote a post in this blog that generated some great comments, Concerns About Book “Leveling.”
Clearly the best piece out there on this topic is Guess My Lexile by Donalyn Miller, who also includes an excellent list of other resources.
Readability Scores on Kids’ Books Are Bogus: Most books come with an indication of how hard they are, and those estimates are mostly wrong is from the Smithsonian Magazine.
Second Quote Of The Day: “Text Levels– Tool or Trouble?”
Quote Of The Day: A Problem With Book “Leveling”
Three Myths About “Reading Levels” is an excellent article appearing in Psychology Today.
Thinking Outside the Bin: Why labeling books by reading level disempowers young readers is from The School Library Journal.
Feedback is welcome.
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You might also want to explore the 900 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
My students get their Lexile scores each fall and spring from the MAP test. I find Lexile scores problematic because they don’t account for everything in the text. For example, Huck Finn has a 660 Lexile score, but that doesn’t account for the difficult dialects or all the required knowledge the reader needs to understand Huck as an unreliable narrator.