This is level F book???

[beishan]

My 7 yo son starts to bring home leveled readers. The first book is a non-fiction level E and he flew through it without help of any single word inside. He is reading beyond that level for sure. The other book he brought home yesterday was Storms by Syemour Simon and it was marked as guided reading level F.

 

From my previous posting, you may know that I was trying to argue with school for his assessed reading level. He was assessed as guided reading level D at school while his OG tutor (an experienced reading specialist in another school) assessed him at DRA 14(=level H). I was very surprised to see how hard the words used inside this reader and the length of texts (32 pages with small spacing each line). If child does not have any background knowledge of storms, he or she will have hard time to read all words even they have average 2nd grade reading level. Does it sound right for level F?

 

This is link from amazon so you can see the sample texts inside. It's 32 pages for the whole book.

http://www.amazon.com/Storms-Reading-Rainbow-Books-Seymour/dp/0688117082/ref=sr_1_1/189-2888888-7634767?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383836496&sr=1-1&keywords=storms+by+seymour+simon#_

 

This is the link from Scholastics and shows guided reading level F.

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/storms-4

 

I think I may have to read aloud to him for this book and have him do repeat reading. I don't think he can read through it by himself and comprehend. Too many big words in there.

 

[Arcadia]

For that book, from your scholastic link,

"Reading Level

Grade level Equivalent: 4.9

Lexile Measure^®: 940L

DRA: Not Available

Guided Reading: F"

 

What you need is to look at this chart which shows the rough correlation between all the reading level systems. (ETA: reading levels are not very clean cut.  You can take two books that are Level F and one might be much easier than the other)

http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/guidedreading/leveling_chart.htm

 

Is your son in 1st grade or 2nd grade?   The materials in Storms by Syemour Simon was covered in my boys science in K and 1st so they had the academic vocabulary to read it themselves.  Of course what is covered in science tend to differ school to school. 

 

My boys did like the other books by Simon Seymour in the same series as Storms

http://www.seymoursimon.com/index.php/books/smithsonian_collins_series/

 

[SKL]

My kids didn't do those ABC levels, but that book is apparently at the late fourth grade level.  Is it possible there is a different "F" in different leveling systems?  Or it could be a typo.

 

There might be another book about storms that is level F.  I seem to remember seeing a "Storms" book in an easy-reader format.

[beishan]

He is in 2nd. They did observe the weather and record them in K-1st. For the rest, they did life science. They hatched chicks from eggs in K and doing butterfly project in 1st. I think that's about it! He has some background knowledgement about weather. We also talked about storms last year when our state was hit by hurricane Sandy. However, he was not yet fully exposed to most of vocabularies (such as atmosphere, cumulus etc). He is bilingual child and is still in remedy reading program even though he is very close to grade level. His school is using guide reading level. Children can pick up books from the bucket they assigned to based on their assessed reading levels so they can read them independently (take-home reader). I was very surprised to see this book fall into his reading bucket (level D-F) but will be happy to read with him if he cannot accomplish it by himself. It is a great non-fiction book, but it looks more like 4 grade level book to me. Level F is 1st grade level and it should be something like Fly Guy series. He can read those in 1st without help (We have all Fly Guy book at home). Lexile measure seems more reasonable. 

 

 

He read Amazing Shark by Sarah Thompson with help last month (he loves sharks) in one sitting but it's a hard work for him. It's guided reading level O which is supposed to be more difficult than level F. When comparing with contexts, I thinks Storms should be far beyond level F.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Sharks-Can-Read-Book/dp/0060544562/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383843964&sr=8-1&keywords=amazing+shark#_

 

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/amazing-sharks-0

 

[ondreeuh]

I agree with you. There is no way that Storms book is a true level F. With a Lexile of 940L, that puts it in the U-W range. And "guided reading level" should be the same scale across all books as I believe it is the unofficial name for the Fountas-Pinnell scale. Reading A-Z also letters, but they are pretty closely aligned.

 

http://www.readinga-z.com/readinga-z-levels/level-correlation-chart/

[MistyMountain]

Wow that is really off. Just looking at it I knew it didn't seem right then I did the Scholastic Wizard and it rated it as a 4.9 and a F which does not make sense at all. I remember the first real book my dd really read was rated at an F and it was much much easier. I'm not sure how that book got a letter rating corresponding to 1st grade.

[DoppeltGemoppelt]

I also think that someone made a mistake. There is no way that this is F. My twins are in first grade and started with level F, but are now on G. None of their books that they brought home come even close. I would ask the teacher specifically about this book.

[extendedforecast]

My kids didn't do those ABC levels, but that book is apparently at the late fourth grade level. Is it possible there is a different "F" in different leveling systems? Or it could be a typo.

 

There might be another book about storms that is level F. I seem to remember seeing a "Storms" book in an easy-reader format.

 

When my dd entered 4th grade last year, she was required to be at a level O. The minimum exit level was S. Students who were below S level at the end of 4th grade were flagged for remediation to be given in 5th grade.

 

Level F sounds about right for 1st grade. This book seems to be mislabeled when compared to other F level readers.