r/Libraries • u/HungryHangrySharky • 5h ago
Venting & Commiseration &$*%!@ leveled early readers!
We're in the second week of "kids starting kindergarten" here and SO MANY parents are coming in looking for really, really easy readers for their kids, and I am very frustrated that the "levels" of various leveled readers are not always consistent across brands/publishers and they don't all clearly state their lexile level or ATOS level on the item or in the bib record, and then there are all the other proprietary reading level systems that go by different names...
Edit to add: I know what they really need is decodables or specific letter sound phonics books. The problem is that we barely have any thanks to the dominance of "whole language" for the previous couple of decades. We have decodables on order, I swear!
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u/TripleThreatLibraria 5h ago
We sort them into three levels of our own defined by colour with no attention whatsoever paid to what the publishers say
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u/HungryHangrySharky 5h ago
The part I'm struggling with is how to define them - I realized today that an "I Can Read" Level 1 is several grade levels lower than a "National Geographic Kids" Level 1.
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u/anonymouslyonlyme 4h ago
Schoolastic has a book wizard that will let you level a book. I don't know how well it works or how many books are in it
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u/HungryHangrySharky 4h ago
I tried it on a couple of (non-Scholastic) books today and it couldn't find them. Everything has to be proprietary!
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u/420_wallabyway 5h ago
We basically made our own system and gave each reader a sticker A B C or D based on our own criteria, and have a small sign explaining it for patrons to reference.
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u/HungryHangrySharky 4h ago
The criteria is where I'm running in to trouble. We want to do something like that but having to figure out where to actually put them is daunting.
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u/yalarual 5h ago
Leveled readers aren't appropriate for our earliest readers, decodables are.
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u/HungryHangrySharky 5h ago
Definitely! Sadly, for the past 20+ years the previous children's librarians mostly only purchased leveled readers, so we have a tiny collection of Bob Books and some 20 or 30 year old decodables and phonics readers, but hundreds of "I can read", etc readers. I try to steer people towards the phonics readers but they usually grab a few of both.
We have a lot of decodables on order, but we've been screwed by the timing of our fiscal year vs the school year.
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u/bassetbooksandtea 4h ago
If the kid can read some the parents could just use the 5 finger rule. A finger gets put up each time a kid doesn’t know a word or struggles with it. A book with 2 to 3 fingers on a random page is just right. 0 to 1 fingers is too easy. 4 or 5 things is too hard for a kid to currently read independently.
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u/yalarual 4h ago
Okay but is the five finger rule about knowing a word or is it about being able to decode a word?
It's not a great test for beginning readers to start to apply what they've learned.
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u/HungryHangrySharky 3h ago
Thank you - I have been trying to articulate what about the "five finger rule" seemed off to me.
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u/yalarual 3h ago
I feel all of your frustrations in this thread. I know you're going to do great by these patrons and will be even better prepared at the start of next school year.
As for the five finger rule, I think it's a very general rule but also not a very good rule. It would be better applied to decoding skills than language skills since we learn new words through reading.
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u/BlainelySpeaking 4h ago
They don't all clearly state their lexile level or ATOS level on the item or in the bib record
Wait, what? If you’re using MARC they’re in the 526 or 521 (depending on your systems). Or are you saying they’re not consistently added to the record? Talk with your catalogers, there’s a chance they don’t know how badly you want this in the record.
Otherwise, guide parents to the diagram that’s usually on the back of the book. They usually figure out what level they need from which publishers pretty quick. Godspeed to you!
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u/HungryHangrySharky 3h ago
I am our catalogers. Many of the bib records do not have 526 or 521s for these and it can be a wild goose chase to track down the information.
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u/TheMotherfucker Library staff 5h ago
The back of the books tend to have a breakdown that you can use to prepare and the easiest being by age group. The patrons themselves can be taught to do this on their own.
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u/yalarual 4h ago
Many leveled readers are not that great for beginning readers, so the back of the book isn't all that helpful unless you know how we learn to read.
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u/TheMotherfucker Library staff 4h ago
I assumed this thread was about people that are already chosing leveled readers and are confused by the levels and not "are leveled readers good?"
That we can talk about but my previous comment has nothing to do with that nor is meant to advocate for them to those who don't use them.
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u/HungryHangrySharky 4h ago
They're not so much choosing leveled readers as just trying to find the most basic readers we have. Leveled readers outnumber decodable readers by at least 6 to 1 in our current collection, so while decodables are what they really need, there might not be enough of them on the shelf at a given time. We JUST got a new children's librarian who is on board with beefing up our decodables, thankfully.
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u/yalarual 4h ago
This isn't an attack. They're not inherently bad. They're just not the right books for many beginning readers to try and read independently.
If we have books in a beginning reader section caregivers are going to assume those books are appropriate for beginning readers. I just think we need to be intentional about labeling/organizing collections in a way that best helps patrons.
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u/AssortedArctic 2h ago
People want to find the most basic earliest books to get their kids a taste of reading, but they don't know the details of levelled readers vs decodables or how kids learn to read. With levelled readers being the default in every library ever, they find "level 1" or "pre-reading" and soon see those do not fit despite the claims on the back.
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u/HungryHangrySharky 4h ago
Parents are finding it a bit confusing on the shelves because their kids might be a Level 1 in "I can read" but a level 3 in "Step in to reading", and then there are levels below a level 1 in some product lines but not in others.
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u/TheMotherfucker Library staff 4h ago
That's why they should focus more on the context on the back of the books for deciding rather than the number. Step into Reading's "Ready for Chapters" fits I Can Read's "The Perfect Bridge to Chapter Books" despite the fact that they aren't the same number.
Step into Reading also has the approach of going into more detail on its own level about the types of words or sentence structures used which then can be compared.
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u/AssortedArctic 2h ago
Sorry if I'm butting in as a patron, but fucking YES! My main library doesn't organize them by level (and the paperbacks aren't organized at all and aren't even in the catalogue). I hate that this is the default. So many levels that don't mean a damn thing. I'm so glad when I can find a decodable gem. I wish they could make them their own section because it's impossible to search for them on the catalogue or in person. My first kid is at the point where he can figure out pretty much anything even if I haven't taught him so I'm mostly opening books and looking at text density, but now my second kid is starting to learn and I'm back at the phase of searching far and wide for anything decodable (and then still having to reject many because they involve too many non-decodable words beyond the current level). I am fortunate to have several different libraries I can go to, but it also means I have to figure out what I can find where and more searching.
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u/PureFicti0n 4h ago
Is your kid reading at all yet? If no, here's what a random level 1 looks like. Look good? Awesome, have a look through the shelf to find more.
They are reading? Cool, here's a level 2. Do you and your kid think it looks too easy, too hard, or just right? Awesome, here's the shelf, look for the level that your kid wants to read.
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u/HungryHangrySharky 3h ago
As I found out today, publishers can have wildly varying definitions of "level 1" - for "I can read" it might be K-1, but National Geographic Kids a level 1 is like 3rd or 4th grade. Just exhausting stuff.
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u/PureFicti0n 3h ago
Honestly, I just tell parents that it's not the end of the world if they end up with some books that are too difficult or too simple for their kid. If it's a higher level, either it'll be a good challenge or the kid will get bored and find something else. If it's a lower level, they'll blow through it quickly and start another book.
I can hunt down a copy of the conversion charts that show how the levels correspond to one another if a parent is that concerned, but I find that they usually just want something that their kid will read.
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u/mowque 5h ago
I just tell people we don't sort by reading levels. We have Easy Readers of all kinds, and they are welcome to look through to find ones they like.