Matching texts & Readers

One of the most important things when teaching a child to read is to make sure that the text is on the appropriate reading level of difficulty that both supports AND challenges them. Rog and Burton suggest that a text that is "just-right" is one where the child can read about 9 out of 10 words and easily comprehend them. I remember learning in Information Sciences that most leveling strategies are not reliable because they all measure different things. Some things that are left out of these measurements are:

• the  length  of the book,
• the appearance  and  placement  of  print on the  page,
• the  degree  of support  offered  by the  illustrations,
• the complexity of concepts and familiarity of subject matter,
• the degree of predictability of the text, and
• the proportion of unique or repeated words to familiar words. 

Rog and Burton's main argument is that "appropriate  reading  materials for emergent  readers  contain  meaningful  and natural  language  patterns  and  many  high frequency words. These  texts should be interesting and  engaging  for children,  contain  high-quality  illustrations,  and  have literary  merit." In their district, they used a 10-step leveling system that focused on vocabulary, size and layout of print, predictability, illustration support, and complexity of concepts.