MOOKS or early Ed teachers: two ?'s

[mandymay]

I have no idea! It can certainly be confusing. My daughter's in first too and her school uses AR which uses grade and month. For example, her score is 4.6 so she's reading at a fourth grade, six month reading level. They're supposed to include comprehension in the testing, but who knows how well that works since her school uses a multiple choice test to check if she understood.

[hocus2]

Reading records usually involve a child reading aloud and then answering questions so comprehension is a factor. I'd guess these are Fountas & Pinnell levels not A-Z. Below is a conversion chart and the grade targets. He's ahead for 1st no matter how you look at it. He's progress may slow as reading requires a lot of prior knowledge activation as you move up. I've been reading a book about dragons to my second grader and we have to talk about a lot of context for her to follow it. Thinks like renting a room in a house are completely unfamiliar to her. So we have to talk about why someone might need a room in a house vs. renting an apartment and why a family might do that.

www.readinga-z.com/learninga-z-levels/level-correlation-chart/

www.heinemann.com/fountasandpinnell/handouts/TextLevelLadderOfProgress.pdf

[nancybotwin]

Ditto hocus2. An assessment will take into account decoding and fluency, and it sounds like they're using Fountas and Pinnell as the assessment.

[cjcouple]

Not a teacher and I am no expert on all reading programs but I was heavily involved with my oldest sons testing early on. (he was non-verbal in school and I had to administer the Evals at home.

In my kids school they use DRA Reading program which uses numbers for the level. Scholastic uses letters but my sons know their equivalent letter because often that is how they are sorted for them to choose from. L-M would be level 20-24 and is a 2nd-3rd grade level.

They are tested on comprehension but not at every grade/level. I believe in younger grades they are still working on certain beginner skills. Hopefully I remember correctly but in 1st it was beginning, middle and end, some sequencing. In second it is more sequencing and identifying the problems, retelling and some reflection. 3rd was complete and accurate retelling in their own words etc.

But there are also stages where the kids must pass a certain level "test/eval" before they can move on.
I think it was in 3rd grade that my son had to read a level 16 (J) in non-fiction AND a separate fiction book within a certain amount of time plus answer questions at end of each book. I specifically remember my oldest had been reading along and stumbled over a sentence, he went back and self corrected on his own and missed the time limit by 1 second. The teacher passed him because if he had not stumbled he would have been fine and the fact he self corrected without any prompting, realizing the original sentence did not make sense, and with his accurate essay at the end, he was within acceptable parameters.

Based on timing, errors and reading through their answers at the end. It all determines if they pass the level and was allowed to move along.

I don't know what levels those required "passings" are but they are not administered at every level. But teachers know what to look for and when it is time to move them along or pull them back when needed. Definitely ask at conferences and she will give you her program, methods and requirements.

[cjcouple]

Oct 4, 2016 12:15:19 GMT -5 aeg511 said:

Oct 4, 2016 12:03:36 GMT -5 hocus2 said:

Reading records usually involve a child reading aloud and then answering questions so comprehension is a factor. I'd guess these are Fountas & Pinnell levels not A-Z. Below is a conversion chart and the grade targets. He's ahead for 1st no matter how you look at it. He's progress may slow as reading requires a lot of prior knowledge activation as you move up. I've been reading a book about dragons to my second grader and we have to talk about a lot of context for her to follow it. Thinks like renting a room in a house are completely unfamiliar to her. So we have to talk about why someone might need a room in a house vs. renting an apartment and why a family might do that.

www.readinga-z.com/learninga-z-levels/level-correlation-chart/

www.heinemann.com/fountasandpinnell/handouts/TextLevelLadderOfProgress.pdf

Thank you, I appreciate your answer!

Thanks for the links, I'll check them out. He keeps getting simple picture books from the library (at school) so hopefully now that his teacher has talked about levels, he will get some more challenging books.

My kids teachers do not monitor what they are selecting from library.  Only in their "baggie books" or homework, were they required to choose from their level.  But library time is anything goes.  

For months my 3rd grader kept choosing these Pigeon books by Mo Willems. They are 1st grade level but hilarious. I didn't care because it was about having fun.  He would get all animated and crazy. But all week long he was working on his chapter books during silent reading and during his homework.         

[cjcouple]

Oct 4, 2016 12:24:41 GMT -5 aeg511 said:

Oct 4, 2016 12:22:47 GMT -5 cjcouple said:

My kids teachers do not monitor what they are selecting from library.  Only in their "baggie books" or homework, were they required to choose from their level.  But library time is anything goes.  

For months my 3rd grader kept choosing these Pigeon books by Mo Willems. They are 1st grade level but hilarious. I didn't care because it was about having fun.  He would get all animated and crazy. But all week long he was working on his chapter books during silent reading and during his homework.         

I think he likes to get the same books as his friends. He'll say "John got this one last week!" Or something like that.

We do love the Mo Willems books, so I guess if he's happy with the funny books, I'll just let him enjoy them.

I see this too.  I figure if it gets them talking about books, well it's one book a week?  
  

[pbandj]

I cannot comment on the reading evaluation, but I do have a recommendation for books.

We recently discovered the Scholastic Branches books: www.scholastic.com/branches/
We read the dragon masters series to my pre-K student last year. He loved them! I have the Haggis and Tank one on hold at the library...

[lauralala]

Oct 4, 2016 12:37:06 GMT -5 pbandj said:

I cannot comment on the reading evaluation, but I do have a recommendation for books.

We recently discovered the Scholastic Branches books: www.scholastic.com/branches/
We read the dragon masters series to my pre-K student last year. He loved them! I have the Haggis and Tank one on hold at the library...

DS loves the Kung Pow Chicken series - I just discovered the Branches books not too long ago.

Our school also uses AR for reading, so I use that as a guide. DS is at a tough spot for me right now. He needs to read higher level books for school, but his interest level is still a typical 1st grader - he wants books he can finish in one reading session, not longer books that he comes back to night after night. So far I've found a few that are higher level and shorter, but it gets frustrating sometimes.

[mandymay]

Oct 4, 2016 12:24:41 GMT -5 aeg511 said:

Oct 4, 2016 12:22:47 GMT -5 cjcouple said:

My kids teachers do not monitor what they are selecting from library.  Only in their "baggie books" or homework, were they required to choose from their level.  But library time is anything goes.  

For months my 3rd grader kept choosing these Pigeon books by Mo Willems. They are 1st grade level but hilarious. I didn't care because it was about having fun.  He would get all animated and crazy. But all week long he was working on his chapter books during silent reading and during his homework.         

I think he likes to get the same books as his friends. He'll say "John got this one last week!" Or something like that.

We do love the Mo Willems books, so I guess if he's happy with the funny books, I'll just let him enjoy them.

Did you know they have a pigeon memory game? It comes in a cloth pigeon from Mo Willems 'Don't Let the Pigeon' series and has artwork of characters from the books. It's fun and packages up compactly

[stephm0188]

Ask the teacher which program they use. We use Fountas and Pinnell. It's similar to Reading A-Z in the early stages, but around J or K they begin to differ quite a bit.

I let kids choose what they want in library for the most part. Sometimes they pick a book that is too easy or slightly too difficult because it interests them, and I'm okay with that. Half the battle is getting them to actually pick up a book and read it because they're interested in the content. Elephant and Piggies are way too easy for my 2nd graders, but they're awesome books for practicing how to be an expressive reader. On the flipside, Diary of a Wimpy Kid books are way above reading level for most of my K-2 kids, but they're so interested in the content that they're willing to take on the challenge.

I've also been talking to them about not discounting picture books as being too easy. Some picture books are low level, but many are more difficult than some chapter books. There are Seuss books with higher reading levels than some Magic Tree House books. Picture books can often times have a more rich vocabulary. There's a lot of value in them, even into the upper elementary years.