How do you determine a child's "reading level?"

[sleepymom]

I notice many people say things like, "My K-er was reading at a 1st (2nd, etc.) grade level." I am wondering how you determine your child's reading level? Is there a test or certain books that are considered standard?

 

I am curious to see where my child is reading right now, but I'm not really sure what to use as a gauge. Even "easy reader" type books seem to vary widely between levels (i.e. a Level 1 book in one series is much more difficult than a Level 2 book in another series). I suspect she may be end-of-K or beginner-1st grade level, but I don't know how to test it.

Thanks for any guidance you can offer on this topic!

[sunnyday]

I look at the books she reads that are at her level or a small challenge, and look them up on the Scholastic BookWizard for reading level and Lexile: http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/bookwizard

 

I also cross-checked by a couple of these little simple assessments: http://a2zhomeschooling.com/main_articles/reading_level_assessment/

[Rachel]

Yes, there does seem to be a ton of variance in the leveled books.

 

If I want to know for a particular book, I google "such & such book reading level". On the back of some books near the bar code is a grade level or a Lexile number.  I also use the Scholastic book wizard, which tells you a grade level and an interest level.  It can be a little off, but it is helpful if you aren't familiar with a certain book.  For instance it said a certain Magic Treehouse book my son was reading was a grade 3.2 and Stuart Little is a grade 5.  I'm not exactly sure how grade level is determined, but I think it has to do with the length of the sentences, number of pages, as well as vocabulary.  I felt like the vocabulary in the Magic Treehouse book was challenging, certainly more challenging that the vocab in Stuart Little.  However it was about half the length of Stuart Little and has shorter sentences. 

I've used the reading assessments linked by sunnyday as well.  

 

On these forums I have seen people say that when a child finishes 100 Easy Lessons a child is reading at about a 2nd grade level and when they finish OPGTR they are reading at a 4th grade level.  I have no idea if that is true, I've never investigated it, but my son has finished OPGTR and according to the assessments he is reading between a 4th grade level and 5th grade level.

[ondreeuh]

I use Book Wizard to check the reading level. Since he can read Nate the Great books easily, I say he is at a mid-2nd grade level. He is reading me Pippi on the Run right now, which is I think 4-something, but he needs a little help with some words like "particularly." The print is small and the text is compact, so he also needs some help tracking.

 

I have all the Harcourt readers as PDFs, and he can read the 2nd grade above-level ones with no problem and can answer all the questions at the end. I need to copy the 3rd grade ones onto my iPad, but I expect he'll be fine with those.

 

His public school kindergarten teacher assessed him using the Reading A-Z assessment. He said my sons reading level for fiction was higher than non-fiction, so he placed him at level M and printed off some of the non-fiction stories. That is about where I expected him to be, as it correlates to mid-2nd grade according to their website.

[Jackie]

I use the Accelerated Reader lists to give me an idea of grade level. I just run titles through arbookfind.com and look at the book level.

[jennynd]

We also use scholastic. The guided reading level is same as pinnell & fountas and we found that most accurately align with both my kids progress.

[sleepymom]

Thanks!!

[boscopup]

Another Scholastic Book Wizard user here. Easy peasy. Just search for the books your kid can read well, and see what level they are.

[Guest godlovesyou]

Thanks so much for the Scholastic Book Wizard info. I had never heard of it and it seems like a great way to figure out reading levels! Yay!