Leveling Books: It's a Yes From Me!

Imagine an elementary school classroom in which every student is following along to the same book as the teacher reads it aloud. In one corner of the room, you have a student daydreaming because he's bored; the book is too easy for him. On the other side of the room, the struggling reader sits at his desk, four pages behind everyone else; he can't keep up. What benefit does this have for either of these students? You're correct if you said none.

In my elementary school experiences, the most vivid part of reading class I can remember is like the one described above. Every Monday, everyone would read the same book as a class. The only books that we read on our own were those that we checked out from the school library, and, even then, the librarians didn't help us to make sure it was a book at our reading level. Looking back, now that I am knowledgeable about different types of reading instruction, I can see how ineffective this particular method was in terms of my love for reading, my motivation to read, and my grades on test scores. I think that if I had grown up in classrooms in which I read specific books based on my reading level, my attitudes towards reading would have been positive, and I would have been more successful.

 

Leveling books means that students read books only at their "Just Right" level, or independent level. According to Mrs. Nemeth from North Street School, you can tell if a book is "just right" if "(1) you know most of the words (less than 5 unknown words on a page), (2) you can understand what you're reading, (3) you are able to tell about the book, (4) it is not too hard and not too easy, and (5) it just feels good!" (http://www.wlps.org/NSS/Class/59-nemeth/1433-Why-do-we-level-books.html). In other words, a child must be able to learn something from what he or she is reading; therefore, he or she needs a book that is challenging, but not so much so that he or she can't understand what's going on in the story.

According to Richard Allington, students need to read texts that they are going to be successful with. This means that they need to be reading with high levels of accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. If students don't understand 2-3 words out of 100, the book they are reading is too hard. Research has shown that providing appropriate books for each reading level not only leads to improved reading skills, but also increases students' motivation skills. If kids are successful at reading, they are going to want to read more.

As elementary school classrooms become more and more diverse, I know, as a future teacher, I will have to stay away from the "one-size-fits-all" method of reading instruction for all of my students to be successful. Teachers need to be aware of this. Although it is harder for the teacher to differentiate curriculum, he or she won't be disappointed when he or she sees the results of