Anonymous wrote:Can she tell you happened in the book when she's done reading? Can she anser questions about the book? Can she extrapolate to other situations, ie "Mary picked the bear in the book today, what do you think would have happened if she picked the lion?"
It's not just sounding out the words, reading comprehension is the skill
+1, just so you're aware, teachers do not use the reading levels that you'll find assessed on books or online. Teachers have tests they administer to children. Children pass the level or they don't. To pass the level, typical things children need to do are:
--pronunciation
--inflection
--doesn't lose place in text (and if does, can find place in text)
--can retell accurately, without looking back, to include setting, characters, in order, specific details
--can give the author's purpose
--can do a text to text relation (how does this text relate to another text)
--can relate the text to self (how does this text relate to the child)
--Does the child use the characters' names or just pronouns
--"uh" and any other words other than the text counts against the child during the assessment
The child also needs to pass BOTH the fiction and non-fiction levels to "pass" onto the next level. Non-fiction is obviously much more difficult.
So when parents say, "Sally is WAY beyond this level," often, Sally is often right on that level. The "easiest" part of reading can be decoding (are the words pronounced correctly) because, in large part, once a child knows how to read, she can read most things. If, however, that same child is unable to answer the required questions to pass the reading level, the fact that she could pick the same book up and read it aloud beautifully does not mean anything whatsoever.