I am leveling and CATALOGING my library (totally tedious task) and am using AR levels because it's easy to access online... however, I feel they seem off to me...
For example (and I am using common books)
George and Martha by James Marshall- 2.7 (this seems higher than I would have expected.)
The Bailey School kids books range from 3.6-4.1 These seem like late second grade to me, MAYBE early 3rd... am I off?
Then, a lot of the DK readers (level 4) are ranked at 5.5, such as the one about Joan of Arc or Free At Last (MLK) at 5.7. These books have HUGE print and I give them to my third graders.
Our school is looking into leveling school wide, but for now, most people don't level. The only thing I can figure with AR is they are at independent reading levels, not for instruction.
Does anyone know for sure. The choices we have (in our library system) are AR, Reading Recovery and Lexile. We don't have access to guided reading levels (a-z) as far as I know.
I level mine with AR. I don't agree always with the level but go with it. I also level with Lexiles inside the book cover. We get that score from our NWEA testing in the fall and spring. I find those levels more accurate. In the school library the media specilaist has assigned colors to the Lexile levels and has put book tape on the binding to correspond with each level. Then I can tell kids to get a tan or red book, whatever their test shows.
If I remember right the AR leveling, the company levels books according to a child's ability to read the text at an independent level...needing no support to read, so there fore the books would be leveled a little higher than what you might expect at a lexile level and DRA which tend to level at an instructional level...
I am actually going to go with AR I think, since my kiddos do TONS of independent and partner reading. I will know to step them down a notch when I do guided reading. I can also level guided reading sets with lexile so that I know what the level is for small groups.
The AR levels are only independent readability level, so people are often "surprised" by some of the books. It's especially tough with middle school because their "readability" levels and their interest & maturity levels are often WAY different.
I'm working on my class library--400+ books--tomorrow. I'm sorting by AR level and by interest level. Should be fun.
05-29-2008, 10:13 PM
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