Student First Leveling

A few months ago, I heard two students talking about the books they were reading.  One said, “I want to read that book too, but I can’t, because I am a K.”  The other student kindly looked at the first and said, “Well, I’m an M, so you’ll get here in no time.”   Our kids hear and interpret the language that we use.

The more I read about teaching reading, the more convinced I am that the best way to move our students forward, is to really know them as readers and how they are developing along the Literacy Continuum (Fountas & Pinnell).  In order to know the specific skills that I should be focusing on in my instruction with a student (conferring or small group), I find it most helpful to utilize an assessment that will provide information around the level that would match their current characteristics of reading. 

Often the next logical step seems to be, I know what this students’ level is, so now I need to get them reading those texts.  However, it seems we might need to pause for a moment and reconcile the valuable information we have obtained about our reader with all of the other things we know about reading:

*Readers can access higher level texts on topics that they have background knowledge in or that peak their interest. 

*Kids can read more complex text if they have someone to talk with about the text.

*We know how to teach our students to pick books that fit well for them, and we want to continue to foster that. 

*One of our most vital goals is to get kids to love reading.  We want them to pick up all kinds of books to ignite that spark!

*We want to build up, not box up, their identity as a reader.

So let me ask you this, if everywhere our students go, the level of the text is already identified, and they are restricted to a certain level, how does that reconcile with the things we already know about teaching reading? 

Those of you who know me, and how excited I am about the Benchmark Assessment Kits (Fountas and Pinnell) and all of the information that you can obtain to target instruction, are probably perplexed as to the contradiction that appears to be brewing here.  Allow me to clarify my opinion (which has evolved over the last year greatly as I have dug deeper both in research and also with students).  There is a time and place that we need students to be in a specific level as we provide instruction around specific skills that are characteristics of that level (hence we have the guided library leveled A to Z).  It’s helpful when we send books home for students to read independently, that we are confident that it will be a positive experience (hence we have leveled take home libraries).  However, it is also important that students learn the skill of choosing an appropriate book and have opportunities to access books at a variety of levels for a variety of purposes (hence your classroom library, their book shelves, the public library, etc.).

The bottom line is that when necessary, we level books; we don’t “level kids.”  We can apply the shift of student-first language to reading levels as well when we say, “Jenny is showing characteristics that match level G.”  Let’s build up their identity as a reader and be purposeful in how we choose books and how we teach students to choose books.  Our students hear what we say, and they interpret what they hear. 

Perhaps that prior conversation could have gone: “Wow, that book looks interesting and I’d like to read it.  It looks like there are a few words I don’t know on each page though.” The other student smiled at the first and said, “Would you like to read this book together?  We can talk about any words we don’t know.” 

Let’s set our kids up to be critical thinkers, free from the confined box of a level identity.