Guided or Leveled Reading

Hi Friends,
I don't know how many of you homeschoolers use ordinary books for reading rather than a basal reader...but I'm sure some of you are familiar with Reading A-Z and their leveled books.

In a public school, children are tested to find their specific reading level, so that during independent reading time, they can be directed to books that are not too hard to read alone; but also, the testing allows the teachers to teach specifically to the child's level.

Anyway...I saw someone ask once about their child's reading level, so I thought I'd share this Reading-Level Comparison Chart which shows grade levels with approximate reading levels for different leveling indicators such as Lexile, DRA and Guided Reading (Fountas & Pinnell.)

I use the Reading A-Z benchmark books to get a level for each child, then use the Reading A-Z Comparison Chart to find the correlating "professional" levels.

Then a few days ago, I found this Book Wizard at Scholastic. You can put in the title of a book or the author, and it will tell you the different levels of the book. Then you can search for more in that level or above or below that level. I've been busy leveling the books from my bookshelves so that the kiddos will know at a glance the books that will be "just right" for them. I send my dgd home with a bag of books to read with her mom and dad every few days, so this wizard has been a huge help in sending the right books home! No more guessing and hoping the books won't be too hard or too easy...now I can just pull level "H" books off the shelf and into the bag they go! So easy.

I thought even though you may not have a grandchild or extra child that leaves your homeschool each day...this may still help you pull the right books out for taking in the car, or for making a list of books to get from the library, or maybe just for quiet time reading... so hopefully I am helping someone out with this post.

Blessings,
*Ü*
Karen