Leveled reading is a guide that a teacher measures you child’s reading level and then pairs your child with books that fit their reading capacity. Depending on what level your child reads at determines the difficulty of the book. Not all children in the same grade read at exactly the same level. By measuring your child’s reading ability it insures reading success by finding books that are suitable for the reading level. Which in turn gives the child confidence in his reading and he does not become frustrated if he cannot keep up with the other class.
You can help your child with leveled reading by asking your child’s teacher what books would be suitable for your child’s reading level. She will be more than happy to provide for you a list of books for your child to read. However, some teachers send home level appropriate books home every night to a part of the child’s homework. And then test or discuss the book the next day depending on the reading system that is being used by the teacher.
Three example of leveled reading system used most commonly are Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), Lexile, and Guided Reading Level (GRL). The reading systems DRA and GRL are really similar in nature. A book is chosen that is appropriate to the grade level and read to the teacher, one on one. The teacher then scores the child by asking questions about the book and having the child retell the story in their own words. Books start at level A and then progress to harder books further down the alphabet. Lexile uses a standardized reading test that measures reading ability. Starting at 200 and continuing up the scale.