GUIDED READING LEVELS FOR USBORNE SERIES, PART 1 This document is in three parts. The first contains a short tutorial about the concepts behind assigning levels to books, so that consultants who interact with teachers and school systems that use leveling may become more familiar with the vocabulary and the various systems. The second contains a brief resume for the two Usborne Supervisors who are responsible for the leveling decisions. The third has the current series’ levels and the rationale for these levels, as well as some notes to help consultants and customers understand a little more about leveling practice along the way. In the upcoming weeks, we’ll be providing the levels for more series. Section 1: What is Leveling? “The purpose of providing leveled books is to provide young readers with materials and instruction that fit their levels of development.” –Guided Reading: Good First Teachign for All Children, by Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, 1996. In the not-very-distant past, leveling books simply meant using a mathematical formula based on the number of words on a page, the number of sentences on a page, and (sometimes) a measure of how frequently the words in the text are likely to appear in general written text—a very rough measure of how familiar the words might be to a child. These are easy things to count, and so provide an easy way to answer how well people who are already fluent readers will be able to understand the text. You can find some of these formulas for free use on some websites, and they are often used by editors who need to write books or instructions at a low level to make sure any adult who reads it will be able to understand it. Why isn’t this sufficient? Because there is a big difference between even a not-very-good adult reader and a beginning child reader. Because seeing whether a text can be read is not the same thing as seeing whether a text is frustrating to read. Because many physical characteristics of a text that we can’t count affect how well we read. Because many aspects of a text aren’t physical but cognitive, and can’t be counted easily. When we say “levels of development,” it’s worth noting that this idea has changed dramatically in the last quarter century. For modern reading specialists, “levels of development” does not only mean a child’s ability to decode text and match it to the equivalent oral utterance; we also mean many other things—that a child’s cognitive development allows him or her to make connections to the text, recognize its implications, draw conclusions, and apply them to other circumstances; that a child’s social and emotional development allows a child to have patience and interest in applying him/herself to a difficult task and to be able to look for the interesting parts of something that s/he doesn’t immediately relate to. So in the last quarter-century, new research about reading has taken into account many additional aspects of a text. Some of these are completely related to the look of the text, and the visual processing tasks that are required of the reader (things like font, relationship of pictures to illustrations, how often our eyes must “sweep” from the end of one line to the beginning of another line, or move from one paragraph to another, or jump from the bottom of a column to the top of another, from a caption to an illustration, etc.). Some of these are related to the child’s current level of language acquisition—vocabulary, grammatical structures, recognition of how different wording relates emotional state, and so on. Some of these are related to the relationship between

spoken language and written language. For example, the s ending of a plural or possessive noun or a simple present tense verb when spoken may be an “s” sound (pants) or a “z” sound (“hands”) or an “uz” (“kisses”) sound, but when written it will show up as an s or an es. Children need to learn that the s stands for the “s” sound at the end of some words, the “z” sound at the end of other words, and that this switch really only applies to the ends of words where this sound is an inflectional ending, not to any other spot in the word. (See how hard reading acquisition really is?) This new approach is about helping teachers choose books for their whole instructional time that will both reinforce what a child already has acquired and build to more complex acquisition. Nowadays, teachers recognize that children vary widely in their acquisition of reading. Sometimes, this is because of variations between families in the child’s preparation for school. Sometimes, it is because of physical immaturity or disability—visual processing immaturities and deficits, oral language immaturities or difficulties, and perhaps other cognitive immaturities or deficits. Sometimes it is because of a lack of emotional maturity—reading is hard, and many children simply can’t stand the frustration of the learning process for many minutes on end, and so take longer to learn to read. So, what is leveling? It is taking into account the many aspects of a text that affect any reader’s ability to read it, and using those characteristics to match books to readers whose fluency makes them just a little higher, exactly at, or just a little lower than the demands of the book. Leveled books are gathered together so that a set of contiguous levels can be used in a classroom to support less-fluent and more-fluent readers equally. In general, children have access to books that are no lower than the lowest reading level in the class, and only a little higher than the highest reading level. This means that books will be swapped out throughout the year, as all class members gain fluency. A quick tour of several popular methods of leveling books Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell (sometimes referred to as F & P) are researchers at Ohio State University who developed and popularized a model of teaching that supported reading throughout every activity. Guided Reading is not “leveling books.” Guided Reading is a context in which a teacher supports each reader’s development, working with small groups of children who read on similar levels. Texts offer the readers a minimum of new things to learn. Children are able to use strategies and develop them on the run. They enjoy stories because they can understand them. The teacher’s interactions help support them learning new problem-solving strategies and to deal with the stumbling blocks of spelling, grammatical structure, and concepts that children haven’t yet been introduced to. So leveled books are only a part of Guided Reading; it also involves assessing each child and each group frequently to decide what level all are at, and involves matching books to kids; mostly, it involves certain kinds of teaching practices. In fact, a teacher in a Guided Reading classroom teacher may not ever level books, but simply use those provided by her school or county or publisher’s reading specialists. But that teacher will have to be expert in assessing the child and putting into practice the many aspects of Guided Reading. Fountas and Pinnell’s levels are based on the best knowledge to date about all aspects of reading acquisition. They take into account a rich range of cues and contexts. These

are not “gimmicky” or “trendy” ideas about reading, but those that have been time-tested and researched for several decades and from several different disciplines, and that have been tested in reading classrooms of all sorts around the country. In our opinion, Fountas and Pinnell’s leveling will be the most widely accepted and longest-lasting of the various leveling systems that exist today. We chose the F & P (or Guided Reading) leveling approach both because we expect that it will have the broadest appeal, especially over time, and because it is pedagogically the most sound system for the broadest range of children. Reading Recovery is a similar model to Guided Reading but focuses on grades 1-3. It is designed specifically to help children who are lagging behind their peers in reading and to get them caught up. There are many potential causes for a child’s lagging, and Reading Recovery is designed both to identify the causes and to offer additional practice and support on those specific problem areas. Therefore, Reading Recovery levels are set up to be much more narrowly defined than those in Guided Reading, so that fewer aspects of reading are being practiced at a time. Reading Recovery was not intended to be a classroom-wide implementation, but rather a pull-out reading enrichment program. Because of budget cuts and poor understanding by many administrators, Reading Recovery is often mis-implemented, and because of this it has a mixed reputation. Because of its limited use and because of its controversial nature, we chose not to provide Reading Recovery (RR) levels for Usborne books at this time. Lexile levels are a trend that many schools have taken up, largely because the company has done the work to correlate books to standardized test results of reading. The appeal to teachers and administrators is that there is a large database of books pre-assigned to levels. The difficulty is that Lexile levels are based far more on tally items, including correlational data collected about the age of children who read a particular book at a particular grade year and month of schools. This kind of data has many fundamental weaknesses, but school districts have so far been slow to recognize them. However, the nature of education trends is that ideas imposed from above with poor understanding of the implications are often quietly dropped as data from classrooms finds out these weaknesses. We expect that while Lexile levels are very popular, that over the next few years this popularity will wane as these weaknesses become better understood. Some have asked why we do not simply provide Lexile levels anyway. The Lexile leveling system is owned by a private company and the cost for licensing its use is beyond the means of EDC, especially given the questions about its long-term value. Some have asked why we don’t use the readability formulae, such as Spache, Powers, Flesch, Dale-Chall, and others that are free or very cheap to use; these have the advantage of requiring no special knowledge to apply, so that any consultant could type a selection of text from any of our books into a readability program and have a readability index to apply to the book. We did conduct a pilot project across numerous series, and found the results to be too widely variable, not only from book to book within a series, but also from text sample to text sample within a book! (Several examples of this are provided for you in the series charts in Section 3.) This shows that these can not provide an accurate-enough level for classroom use. We don’t simply want to provide levels, we want to provide levels that teachers agree with after they’ve used them. Otherwise, we’ll lose credibility.

GUIDED READING LEVELS BY SERIES, PART I SERIES: Easy Words to Read Series (Phonics Readers) BOOKS IN SERIES:

Hen’s Pens, Fat Cat on a Mat, Big Pig on a Dig, Ted in a Red Bed, Ted’s Shed, Frog on a Log, Goose on the Loose, Toad Makes a Road, Fox on a Box, Shark in the Park, Mouse Moves House, Sam Sheep Can’t Sleep, and the C/V Ted and Friends.

LEVEL: Fountas & Pinnell Level C (suitable for beginning first graders and up) RATIONALE: 1. Level B books are readable by late-year kindergarteners;

average kindergartners would not be able to read most of these books with control, so they are at least a level C. (First grade reading “on level” would be levels C-H of Fountas and Pinnell).

2. Characteristics of this series that Level C books typically include: a. A simple story line and familiar topics b. Few characters to keep track of c. More than one action in the story d. Two or more lines of print per page e. A required “sweep return” (see Part 1 for explanation) f. Direct correspondence between the text and picture; however, the reader can’t depend on the illustrations to read the book accurately (See Part 1 for an explanation) g. Dialogue occurs h. A wide range of punctuation i. Some conjoined sentences (using “and” or “but”) j. Text affords opportunities to notice regular spelling patterns k. Some inflectional endings used, especially –ed, -s (plural nouns and simple present tense verbs)

NOTES: This series starts with simpler books that are closer to Level B

books: Hen’s Pens, Fat Cat on a Mat, Big Pig on a Dig, and Frog on a Log have less of the following characteristics above: e, h, i, k

GUIDED READING LEVELS BY SERIES, PART I SERIES: Beginner’s Internet-Referenced Series BOOKS IN SERIES:

Horses and Ponies, Egyptians, Romans, Tadpoles and Frogs, Bears, Dogs, Caterpillars and Butterflies, Night Animals (Spache. 2.91), Farm Animals (S. 2.83) , Cats, Eggs and Chicks, Spiders, Dinosaurs, How Flowers Grow, Ballet (S. 2.87, Planes, Living in Space, Castles (S. 2.84), Trucks, Sun, Moon and Stars, Under the Sea (s. 2.48)

LEVEL: Fountas & Pinnell Level E, Spache Readability index 2.5+. RATIONALE: 1. These books are not in level D because the text layout is not

easy enough to follow for those reading at the D level. Level E is about the level of a mid-late first grader (First grade reading “on level” would be levels C-H of Fountas and Pinnell).

2. Characteristics of this series that Level E books typically include:

a. Introduction of more complex vocabulary, ideas, and grammatical construction b. Topics in this series range beyond those things that are personally experiences, but are enough of the everyday world that they do not rate a higher level—they are concrete and about topics that children are familiar with c. Very little technical vocabulary is introduced d. Vocabulary is more varied and has many multi-syllabic words e. Placement of print is variable and there is a mix of font sizes f. Texts may only have a few words or lines per page but the ideas require more control of aspects of print (in this series, the use of captions and the constant reference in the text to aspects of the picture are good examples of this issue) g. Books are longer, with more lines of text on each page h. Number of words, lines of print, and variety of high frequency words is greater than level D, increasing a child’s vocabulary of frequently-used words i. Full range of punctuation and inflectionals used (noun markers include number, possessive, and combination; full range of verb tense inflections present) j. Language is less naturalistic, includes grammatical constructions and flow that are more typical of text than conversation

NOTES: Notice that the Spache readability “grade” is about a year above the Guided Reading level for this book; Spache and other older readability models are based on tallies of several characteristics that are often mitigated by non-countable text characteristics such as grammatical construction, topic, number of sweep returns required, font variations, picture-text relationship, etc.

GUIDED READING LEVELS BY SERIES, PART I SERIES: Young Geography BOOKS IN SERIES:

My Street (Spache 2.7) , My Town (Spache 2.96)

LEVEL: Fountas & Pinnell Level H, Spache Readability index 2.7+. RATIONALE: 1. While levels G and H are similar, level H has harder vocabulary,

complex grammatical constructions are more frequent, the stories are longer, and there is less repetition. Level H is about the level of an mid-to-end-of-year first-grade reader. (First grade reading “on level” would be levels C-H of Fountas and Pinnell). 2. Characteristics of this series that Level H books typically include: a. greater range of vocabulary b. frequent use of multisyllabic words c. little repetition of specific language structures d. uses child’s experiences as a basis to present new information or help classify experience in a more abstract cognitive structure (in this series, presenting experiences of living in a home and in a town to develop knowledge about geography and social structure) e. pictures support text, enhance meaning, arouse interest f. Texts may only have a few words or lines per page but the ideas require more control of aspects of print (in this series, the use of flaps, peek-through holes, and text references to the information in the picture or the manipulable aspects of the page are good examples of this issue) g. Full range of punctuation and inflectionals used (noun markers include number, possessive, and combination; full range of verb tense inflections present)

NOTES: Comparing the Spache readability and the F & P level for this series and for the Beginner’s IR series, you’ll see that for the Beginner’s series, the Spache formula suggested a higher reading level for the Beginner’s series than for Young Geography, while F & P suggest the reverse. This is a great example of how limited the tallying method is, especially with regard to books that require the reader to interact with illustrations or to answer questions that compare personal experience with the text.

GUIDED READING LEVELS BY SERIES, PART I SERIES: Flip Flap Body Books BOOKS IN SERIES:

How Do Your Senses Work? (Spache 2.47) What Happens to Your Food? (Spache 2.5) How are Babies Made? (Spache 2.3)

LEVEL: F & P Level I, Spache level 2.3-2.5 RATIONALE: 1. Level I continues to have text that is more complex in terms of

physical placement on the page, vocabulary, and expectations of recognizing multiple perspective (of several characters, for example) without as many overt cues (for example, not stating that a character is sad, but using language and illustrations to convey this indirectly). Fluent readers use less of their working memory to decode text and so are more able to recognize subtle shifts in language style and perspective. Level I books are generally readable by average late first-grade and early second-grade children. 2. Characteristics of this series that Level I books typically include: a. informational books are short but with more difficult content b. complex word solving is required c. more multisyllable words within longer sentences and paragraphs d. font size generally smaller e. more words on each page f. layout varies widely with unusual layout features g. illustrations on almost every page h. illustrations enhance meaning but provide little support for precise word solving and meaning

NOTES: Again, comparing the Young Geography and Beginner’s IR series to Flip Flap Body Books, Spache readability levels are lower for this series than the other two, while F & P levels are higher than the other two.

GUIDED READING LEVELS BY SERIES, PART I SERIES: First Encyclopedia Series BOOKS IN SERIES:

1st Encyclopedia of Animals, 1st Encyclopedia of Seas and Oceans, 1st Encyclopedia of Space, 1st Encyclopedia of the Human Body (Powers Level

4.36), 1st Encyclopedia of Science, 1st Encyclopedia of History, 1st Encyclopedia of Our World, 1st Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs, 1st Atlas, The Usborne Internet-Linked Children’s Encyclopedia

LEVEL: Fountas & Pinnell Level N, Powers Readability index 4.3-5.1. RATIONALE: 1. Books at Levels M and above are considered to be “on level” for

3rd grade children; second graders who achieve high fluency during the year will also read as high as level P “on level.” The break between levels M and N is considered a qualitatively different reading experience. An important characteristic is that they are longer than level M books.

2. Characteristics of this series that Level N books typically include: a. Books may present social issues b. The reader is required to use strategies to learn meaning of new vocabulary (gathering clues from context, relating words to others with similar structure or spelling, recognizing and using editorial cues such as highlighting and italics to notice potentially novel vocabulary) c. Topics are beyond the reader’s own experience ; children use books to gain vicarious experiences to help them understand their world.

NOTES: There are many readability index formulas, and each one has specific

strengths and weaknesses. The Spache index’s formula tend to “top out” at readability levels below 4.0, while the Power’s formula tends to “bottom out” at about level 3.0. Therefore, books at F & P levels N and above tend to be better characterized by Powers than by Spache. Most of the other readability formulas are aimed at readability for adult texts, while Powers and Spache are aimed at readability for children’s texts.

GUIDED READING LEVELS BY SERIES, PART II

SERIES: FLAP BOOKS BOOKS IN SERIES:

There’s a Dragon in My School, There’s a Monster in My House, Who’s Making that Mess? Who’s Making that Smell? Who’s Making that Noise?

LEVEL: Fountas & Pinnell Level C (suitable for early 1st grade) RATIONALE: 1. Level B books are readable by late-year kindergarteners;

average kindergartners would not be able to read most of these books with control, so they are at least a level C.

2. Characteristics of this series that Level C books typically include: a. A simple story line and familiar topics b. Few characters to keep track of c. More than one action in the story d. Two or more lines of print per page, but few lines total e. A required “sweep return” f. Direct correspondence between the text and picture; however, the reader can’t depend on the illustrations to read the book accurately g. Dialogue occurs h. A wide range of punctuation i. Some conjoined sentences j. Text affords opportunities to notice regular spelling patterns k. Some inflectional endings used, especially –ed, -s (plural nouns and simple present tense verbs)

l. Rhymed lines provide clues about what is hidden behind flaps m. Repetition of rhythm, and rhyme patterns as well as repetitive plot elements provide context for deciphering text n. More adjectives and adverbs are used, but they are the ones normally encountered by children in their everyday vocabulary.

NOTES:

GUIDED READING LEVELS BY SERIES, PART II

SERIES: READING FOR BEGINNERS SERIES BOOKS IN SERIES:

The Monster Gang, The Incredible Present, The Ogs Learn to Fly, The Ogs Learn to Float, The Ogs Invent the Wheel, The Ogs Discover Fire

LEVEL: Fountas & Pinnell Level D (suitable for early-mid -1st grade) RATIONALE: 1. These books have slightly longer and more complex stories than at

level C. There are several episodes within a simple plot line

2. Level D books have the following characteristics (those true of this series especially are highlighted in bold):

a. not unusual to include compound sentences, usually conjoined by "and"

b. interesting new punctuation such as dashes or ellipses c. illustrations are supportive and move to the new role of

enhancing and extending meaning and are still important

d. larger number of easy high frequency words as well as words with inflectional endings, as well as more compound and multisyllable words

e. opportunities to solve words using regular spelling patterns

f. questions on each double-page spread require the reader to pause and actively comprehend what has taken place to make good inferences and/or interact with the illustration to solve the clues.

NOTES:

GUIDED READING LEVELS BY SERIES, PART II SERIES: Lift-the-Flap Learners Series BOOKS IN SERIES:

Baby Animals, Animal Homes, Nighttime, On the Beach, Bugs and Slugs, On the Farm, Dinosaurs, Under the Sea, Birds, Creepy Crawlies

LEVEL: Fountas & Pinnell Level E (suitable for mid-late 1st grade) RATIONALE: 1. These books are not in level D because the text layout is not

easy enough to follow for those reading at the D level. 2. Level E books have the following characteristics (those true of

this series especially are highlighted in bold): a. Introduction of more complex vocabulary, ideas, and grammatical construction b. Topics in this series range beyond those things that are personally experienced, but are enough of the everyday world that they do not rate a higher level—they are concrete and about topics that children are familiar with c. Very little technical vocabulary is introduced d. Vocabulary is more varied and has many multi-syllabic words e. Placement of print is variable and there is a mix of font sizes f. Texts may only have a few words or lines per page but the ideas require more control of aspects of print (in this series, the use of flaps and the constant reference in the text to aspects of the picture are good examples of this issue) g. Books are longer, with more lines of text on each page h. Number of words, lines of print, and variety of high frequency words is greater than level D, increasing a child’s vocabulary of frequently-used words i. Full range of punctuation and inflectionals used (noun markers include number, possessive, and combination; full range of verb tense inflections present) j. Language is less naturalistic, includes grammatical constructions and flow that are more typical of text than conversation

NOTES:

GUIDED READING LEVELS BY SERIES, PART II SERIES: First Pets Series BOOKS IN SERIES:

Hamsters, Dogs and Puppies, Cats and Kittens, Rabbits

LEVEL: Fountas & Pinnell Level E (suitable for mid-late 1st grade) RATIONALE: Level E books have the following characteristics (those true of this

series especially are highlighted in bold): (see also Lift-the-Flap Learner series for more characteristics of this book level) a. between 15 and 75 pages b. informational books may contain technical language and harder vocabulary words c. children will encounter words that they do not usually use in their spoken language d. illustrations are located at many places in the text and still play an important role.

NOTES:

GUIDED READING LEVELS BY SERIES, PART II SERIES: YOUNG READING SERIES ONE “Stories Of” Books BOOKS IN SERIES:

Stories of Giants, Stories of Knights, Stories of Gnomes and Goblins, Stories of Monsters, Stories of Dragons, Stories of Witches, Stories of Pirates, Stories of Princes and Princesses, Wizards, Stories of Ghosts, Stories of Robots, Magical Animals, Animal Legends

LEVEL: Fountas & Pinnell Level F (suitable for mid-1st-2nd grade) RATIONALE: 1. Each of the stories in this book is very short and self-contained,

so they do not require the reader to remember characters and events over a longer reading task. (In comparison, chapter books require memory of characters and events throughout the whole book.) 2. Level F books have the following characteristics (those true of this series especially are highlighted in bold):

a. require close attention to print b.language reflects patterns that are more characteristic of written language than spoken language (this may include vocabulary, grammar, length of sentences, and phrasing). c. all punctuation types are present d. punctuation is used to enhance meaning e. concepts are more distant from local knowledge or the everyday world f. themes include realistic stories, human and animal fantasy, and simple folktales g. a variety of high-frequency words along with a greater variety of vocabulary h. opportunity to encounter, notice, and solve regular spelling patterns i. texts include longer sentences, more lines on a page j. some texts have abstract ideas that will require discussion

NOTES:

GUIDED READING LEVELS BY SERIES, PART II SERIES: YOUNG READERS SERIES ONE—remaining books BOOKS IN SERIES:

The Burglar’s Breakfast, The Dinosaurs Next Door, Ali Baba & the Forty Thieves, Aladdin & His Magical Lamp, The Elves & the Shoemaker, The Story of Chocolate

LEVEL: Fountas & Pinnell Level H (middle-late 1st grade) RATIONALE:

1. While levels G and H are similar, level H has harder vocabulary, complex grammatical constructions are more frequent, the stories are longer, and there is less repetition. Level H is about the level of a mid-to-end-of-year first-grade reader. (First grade reading “on level” would be levels C-H of Fountas and Pinnell). 2. These chapter books require the reader to remember events and characters throughout the book. There are a variety of events that take place and interact to shape the plot. Because the book is not necessarily read all at one sitting, memory of the story may need to be retrieved to re-establish the context.

3. Level H books have the following characteristics (those true of this series especially are highlighted in bold):

a. readers are required to apply skills to read longer and more varied text. b. size and placement of text varies widely and calls for flexibility on the part of the reader c. frequent use of multisyllable words and a large number of the full range of high-frequency words d. picture support is still important to enhance meaning and arouse interest e. most stories can be categorized as realistic fiction, fantasy, or folktales f. characters tend to learn and change g. events require interpretation

NOTES:

GUIDED READING LEVELS BY SERIES, PART I SERIES: YOUNG PUZZLE ADVENTURES SERIES BOOKS IN SERIES:

Uncle Pete the Pirate, Spook’s Surprise, Molly’s Magic Carpet, Chocolate Island, Dragon in the Cupboard, Uncle Pete’s Pirate Adventure, Lucy and the Sea Monster, Lucy and the Sea Monster to the Rescue, Wendy the Witch, Land of the Lost Teddies

LEVEL: Fountas & Pinnell Level I (late 1st-early 2nd grade reading level) RATIONALE: 1. Level I continues to have text that is more complex in terms of

physical placement on the page, vocabulary, and expectations of recognizing multiple perspective (of several characters, for example) without as many overt cues (for example, not stating that a character is sad, but using language and illustrations to convey this indirectly). Fluent readers use less of their working memory to decode text and so are more able to recognize subtle shifts in language style and perspective. For this series, the questions at the bottom of each page serve to make the reader pause, integrate the story line to this point, actively comprehend what has taken place to make good inferences and/or interact with the illustration to solve the clues. 2. Level I books have the following characteristics (those true of this series especially are highlighted in bold): a. one main plot with a solution b. complex word solving is required c. more multisyllable words within longer sentences and paragraphs d. font size generally smaller e. more words on each page f. layout varies widely with unusual layout features, such as maps and charts g. illustrations on almost every page h. illustrations enhance meaning but provide little support for precise word solving and meaning i. episodes and events are more highly elaborated and there are multiple events to understand and follow. j. characters and story events require interpretation & offer an interesting focus for discussion

NOTES:

GUIDED READING LEVELS BY SERIES, PART I SERIES: YOUNG READING SERIES TWO BOOKS IN SERIES:

The Billy Goats Gruff, Pinocchio, The Princess and the Pea, the Snow Queen, Around The World in 80 Days, Jason and the Golden Fleece, Aesop’s Fables, Ulysses, Hercules, A Christmas Carol, Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Adventures of King Arthur, Treasure Island, The Story of Castles, The Story of Flying, The Story of Ships, The Story of Trains

LEVEL: Fountas & Pinnell Level K (mid-late2nd grade reading level) RATIONALE: 1. Level K books have the following characteristics (those true of

this series especially are highlighted in bold): a. include longer and slightly more complex chapter books with more characters b. between 15 and 75 pages c. some historical fiction that does not require extensive background to understand d. fables and legends may be included e. have multiple episodes related to a single plot and cover a longer time period than Level J books f. children will encounter words that they do not usually use in their spoken language g. great deal of dialogue with several speakers on one page h. reader is required to follow dialogue to determine what is happening in the text i. illustrations still play an important role in enhancing enjoyment and helping children visualize characters, setting, and action.

NOTES: