My First PS Rant

[SailorMom]

Yes - it was our choice.... So I'm going to put up with it. But I had to unload somewhere!

 

Anyone here know about Lexile?? It's they way the classify reading levels of books. Middle schoolers have to read so many pages a month of a certain Lexile level, and take tests. Sounds ok, right?

 

Yeah - until you start looking at how they score the books.

 

The books are fed into a computer program that looks at words and sentence length. Nothing about themes, content, depth, nothing!

 

To give you an example of how this messes things up:

 

The Grapes of Wrath came up at a 6-7th grade reading level

Tiki Tiki Tembo, No Sar Rembo came out at 10th grade.

The Twilight Series came out 7-8th

 

Yep - the scores are worthless craptrap.

 

So - I would love to have my son read classics this year, but they seem to score lower than mindless bubblegum books.

 

Ridiculous.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Yes - it was our choice.... So I'm going to put up with it. But I had to unload somewhere!

 

Anyone here know about Lexile?? It's they way the classify reading levels of books. Middle schoolers have to read so many pages a month of a certain Lexile level, and take tests. Sounds ok, right?

 

Yeah - until you start looking at how they score the books.

 

The books are fed into a computer program that looks at words and sentence length. Nothing about themes, content, depth, nothing!

 

To give you an example of how this messes things up:

 

The Grapes of Wrath came up at a 6-7th grade reading level

Tiki Tiki Tembo, No Sar Rembo came out at 10th grade.

The Twilight Series came out 7-8th

 

Yep - the scores are worthless craptrap.

 

So - I would love to have my son read classics this year, but they seem to score lower than mindless bubblegum books.

 

Ridiculous.

 

My neighbor's daughter wasn't allowed to read books that didn't score at her lexile or above for class credit. Sounds fine. Until you realize that she is being encouraged to skip many childhood classics that have storytelling that it is worth not missing. And that The Hobbit was determined to be below her lexile ability (she is a 4th grader). And that she is a very strong reader, so her reading ability and reading growth rate is pretty much being held against her in the interest of ever increasing difficulty.

 

I would have pitched an absolute fit.

[Mandamom]

I agree with you. We do lexile at my school but we also make sure that the classics are included by putting them in a lower lexile/high concept section and the students are required to read them even if their lexile scores are higher. Some literature you just shouldn't miss.

 

Sorry to hear your school is so limiting.

[mommaduck]

I would show these discrepancies to the school and let them know that you have an issue with it. (honestly, I think it's perfect news fodder on the wacked out experimentation of our school districts.)

[TN Mama]

My neighbor's daughter wasn't allowed to read books that didn't score at her lexile or above for class credit. Sounds fine. Until you realize that she is being encouraged to skip many childhood classics that have storytelling that it is worth not missing. And that The Hobbit was determined to be below her lexile ability (she is a 4th grader). And that she is a very strong reader, so her reading ability and reading growth rate is pretty much being held against her in the interest of ever increasing difficulty.

 

I would have pitched an absolute fit.

 

My friend was telling me the same thing about the AR program. Her daughter tested at a certain level and therefore could not earn credits for reading books below her level. Sad.

[Word Nerd]

I posted similar concerns about Accelerated Reader here recently and am still not sure how I'm going to handle it. I may start choosing read-alouds that I'd like my DD to be familiar with but that aren't in her target AR range.

[Teachin'Mine]

In my dd's school, the books were shelved according to grade level. She was not allowed to take out anything other than Kindergarten level in K - nothing. The books she had to choose from were little more than picture books. She was reading on a junior high level. It was explained that the content of the older level books would not be appropriate for a Kindergartner. This was a private school. One thing we learned quickly is that school policies rarely made sense.