Matching Text and Readers

macmillanmh.com

I chose to read the article by Rog and Burton about leveled readers. One of my favorite statements from the article was at the very beginning when it said "if students are to learn and apply reading strategies, they need texts that provide a balance between support and challenge." How true is this? As future teachers, we are constantly learning about all of these reading strategies we are supposed to teach our students to apply in class, but how will they even be effective if the text is far too difficult for them? Students should be reading 'just right texts' which are where the students can read 9/10 words. Difficulty of a book is determined by many factors and the article states, but some included are

• length of the book
• appearance and placement of print on the page
• degree of support offered by illustrations
• complexity of concepts and familiarity of subject matter
• degree of predictability of text
• proportion of unique or repeated words to familiar words

The authors describe the levels 1-10 they created. Level 1 starts with one-two words on a page with illustrations to accompany them. Level 10 have pages full of text, but the print is still considered enlarged. There are more sophisticated concepts included in the level 10 books. Levels 2-9 obviously go from easier to more difficult.

I don't have a very firm opinion on leveled readers. While I think they could be very effective in the classroom, I just don't like the idea that students could more easily know which level they are at. If there is a way I could easily distract from that, I would love them. What do yall think? Have you seen these to be effective, or not really?