There are a multitude of factors that go into choosing what to read. As adults, we often read the flap on the dust jacket or the back of a paperback book for a synopsis so we can decide if we're interested. Sometimes it's as easy as looking at the cover art (though, I should warn you, the cover artist has rarely read the book!). We talk to friends about what they're reading.
As parents/guiding adults, however, how do you know what book to give a child? After all, we don't want the book to be too hard or too easy, or the child will lose interest. We don't want to give them material that is developmentally inappropriate. What's a grownup to do?
To me, there are two different factors at work when choosing a book. One is the complexity of the text. How difficult is the vocabulary? Are the sentences long and complex, or short? How much text is there? What background knowledge is required to understand the text?
The other factor is content. What happens in the story? Is there mature subject matter? Is there sex, violence, drug use? After all, books don't come with content ratings like movies do--inadequate though they may be.
There are resources for all of these things. In this post, we'll focus on most of the first part--the text complexity. Background knowledge is a big topic all on its own, and will get its own post later.
There are many, many ways to determine the reading level of a book. For instance, Hoagie's Gifted gives over a dozen. Today, i'm going to focus on Lexile level. I made this choice for a few reasons. First, this is the level reference in the new Common Core State Standards (yet another future post). Second, some libraries, including the one at my school, have begun using Lexile level stickers on the spines of their books to aid readers in their selection. If your school reports your child's reading level in another form, it can be converted to Lexile fairly easily.
So let's go to Lexile.com. Take some time and click around. Maybe watch some of the videos.
Are you back? Great! Here's some of the cool stuff that I like about using this website to help choose reading material for my child. That's on the "Find a Book" tab at the top of the page.
First, I don't have to know my child's level. I can just answer two questions--my child's grade and whether the reading in that grade is too hard/just right/too easy. It's not perfect, but it's a good starting point. Then you can click boxes on what your child is interested in.
An alternative measure is to find a book that your child likes to read and search for it, then see what level that book is at.
"But wait!" you say. "My kid's favorite book isn't on there!" See that tab at the top that says "Lexile Analyzer"? It requires a (free) registration on the site, but you can enter some text from a book, article, or website, and the analyzer will give you the Lexile level. For example, I ran the text of this post so far through the analyzer, and it's a 760L. (Just as a point of reference, that used to be a 4-5 grade level, but is now midrange of a 2-3 grade level.)
Another nice thing about registering on the site is that you can create profiles. With those, you can create personalized reading lists.
At any rate, once you know at what approximate level your child reads, you can search within levels for books, or, if your child is interested in a book, you can check its level. For example, a friend's daughter was interested in a specific book. When I checked the Lexile, we discovered that it was enough above her current level that she would be frustrated, so my friend found a different book that covered the same ideas. Remember, we want our kids to stretch a little, but if a book is too challenging, they will be frustrated and lose interest. Enough frustration and we turn a child off reading.
Next: I've got a little list. No wait, I have a bunch of lists.
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