Leveled books and readers

As I believe I've mentioned, last year I worked in a K-2 elementary school and though I assisted in language arts and mathematics, I was based out of the Literacy Lab. In that room, I was introduced to leveled books, as that was the method by which most of the books were organized. On multiple occasions I would look through a book of one level and compare it to a book of the next, or preceding level. Oftentimes there seemed to be very little difference from one level to the next.

That makes the anecdote from Glasswell's and Ford's (2011) Let's Start Leveling about Leveling all the more surprising. In it, they tell of a child who is denied the opportunity to read a D-level book because he is only at the C-level. Then, at his next assessment, he jumps to E-level books, and thus is still denied the opportunity to read the D-leveled book that he was so interested in. This story serves as the jumping off point to discuss how a good idea - matching readers to appropriate level reading material - can go wrong.

Clearly, one's reading level is not the only determining factor in whether or not a book is appropriate for a student. I myself have failed to read and finish books on multiple occasions, and not because I was a too low a level for the book in question, but rather because I lacked sufficient interest to continue. As teachers, we should always be ready to take advantage of a students desire to engage with a subject matter. Though we don't want our young readers to operate at the level of frustration too often, I would think that an intense interest in a subject might help a student to mitigate some of the frustration they may have from a more advanced text. Additionally, if that text is really too far outside a student's ability, then the teacher ought to try and find a book on the same subject matter that is more appropriately leveled.

However, the idea that the student is denied a book for being one level away from the level in which it is categorized is ludicrous. Reading is not just about levels, but many other things as Glasswell and Ford note. Background experience, vocabulary, motivation, subject knowledge, setting, format, emotional climate and many other aspects can determine whether an engagement with a book will be successful. Basing book selections solely on level is silly.

The authors also note that the manner in which levels are assessed and assigned to books is very complex and requires a lot of arbitrary and vague evaluations of text, thus drawing into question the true difference between one level and the next. Glasswell and Ford express other valuable ideas about leveled books, but through them all, the point is that the teacher needs to be actively aware of their students' interests and needs. Teachers should not rely on levels as the sole or main manner in which books are matched to students.