| Choosing books at the appropriate level for your students can be a challenge. Here are some techniques you can use to match students to books that they can read—and will want to read.
Keeping Students Engaged and Challenged Every time students read an unfamiliar genre of fiction or nonfiction, they are learning more about reading itself. Your task is to provide students with interesting books at their level that will keep this learning process going. It can be a tricky business, but there are proven strategies for matching books to readers.
Leveled Book Collections The best way to match students to books is through the use of leveled books. Leveled book collections may span books at the emergent-reader level to longer, more complex books for advanced readers. You can work with colleagues to create leveled book collections, or purchase such collections. In either case, leveled book collections should offer multiple copies of each book. Good leveled book collections are valuable to you and young readers for several reasons:
- They are organized in such a way as to make books easy for students to select.
- They have a gradient of text, so you can easily assess students' progress over time.
- They provide a variety of text types, thereby increasing students' reading power.
Leveling Systems There are several widely accepted and available methods of leveling books, among them (DRA) Developmental Reading Assessment, Fountas and Pinnell's Guided Reading Leveling System, and the Lexile Reading Framework. These systems can be applied to level any book.
Creating Leveled Book Collections Gay Su Pinnell, Professor of Education at Ohio State University and guided-reading specialist, has created criteria for leveling books:
- Length: Length includes number of pages, words, and lines on the page. For beginning readers, there should be only one or two lines per page.
- Layout: Beginning readers need a large font, clear spaces between words and lines, and print clearly separated from pictures.
- Structure and Organization: For beginning readers books should have simple plots, repetition, and a chronological organization.
- Illustrations: Pictures support readers in gaining meaning and solving words. When the frequency of pictures decrease, the difficulty of the book increases.
- Words: For beginning readers books should contain high-frequency words, regular spellings, and content reinforced by pictures. For more advanced readers books use multi-syllabic words and a wider vocabulary.
- Phrases and Sentences: Books for beginning readers should have simple sentences (Subject-Verb; Subject-Verb-Object), while more advanced books use some complex sentences and embedded clauses.
- Literary Features: Books for beginning readers have few characters, and a simple plot and setting, while more advanced books may feature flashbacks, metaphors, and other challenging literary elements.
- Content and Theme: Beginning readers require familiar topics and themes. Books for more advanced readers can focus on topics students do not experience in everyday life.
Using these criteria, you can level book collections of any size. Then, once you have your groups established, you'll have everything you need to begin the guided reading process.
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