I would say a lot more but Malissa lives in a different state than I do, and she sends me this, saying what I would say and more:
So I need to vent. As will happen at times. And what better place than your best friend's book blog?
So
here's the thing. Our state has introduced new educational standards
this year (no, I don't have kids in school yet, but I know these things
because I'm a public librarian). Stuff to do with common core and other
things I'm not terribly well versed in. A part of this is a move toward
using Lexile scores to guide a student's reading. So today I got an
email from our state library listserv with an attached article about
Lexile measure so that we librarians can be informed when panicked
parents come in and don't know what it means that their kid needs a book
from 750L - 900L. So I read it in the interest of being up to date and
informed even though I'm already familiar with Lexile levels in general.
And it says how great a tool this is to help your kids improve their
reading and how you can use your school provided scores (Now a part of
state standardized testing. Yay!) to provide your kids with books from
100L below their score to 50L above and track their progress and have a
grand time etc. All very sunny and glowing stuff. I almost bought it. OK
not really, but it did sound pretty decent. Then I decided to check a
couple of books for my own amusement and enlightenment (I've done this
before, but maybe it changed somehow ...). So I looked up Bad Kitty Meets the Baby
by Nick Bruel.) It's part of a juvenile chapter book series that my 5
year old kindergarten nephew LOVES. They're short and heavy on pictures
and short on text. A bit like the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.
BUT they use big words intentionally and in fun ways and then list them
in the back with definitions. My nephew went around last year after
I gave him his first Bad Kitty book and said "masticate" on a
regular basis. Used it correctly. (+snicker snicker+ because how great
of an aunt does that make me?). Pretty cool way to get kids to learn
vocab if you ask me, but does it make the book 720L and roughly
equivalent in difficulty to The Boxcar Children mysteries and Hank the Cowdog (as an aside, Hank the Cowdog ranks about a 4.8 reading level and 3ish point for AR and Bad Kitty is 3.5 and 1 point)? I
don't think so, but who am I to say. So then I decided to try
Lexile.com's find a book feature and told it I was a 12th grader who
found assigned reading easy. I gave it categories of books I like and
hit search. It suggests that as a high school senior and advanced reader that I read J.K. Rowlings Tales of Beedle the Bard, apparently a 1290L. Yes, I read that as an adult, but not to challenge myself. 1290L? Really? OR I could read Orwell's Animal Farm at 1170L. Because Beedle the Bard is clearly more complex and challenging than Animal Farm
... And this is where one of my big problems lies. The scores only seem
to take into account things like sentence structure or vocab or word
length. They do nothing for the subtle complexities of the text. They
don't consider the themes of the stories. Yet they're presented to
parents and educators as the be all and end all of what kids SHOULD be
reading. And sure, kids need to be challenged and assigned reading in
school that they wouldn't usually pick up, but none of this existed (or
at least was used) when I was a kid (and, no, I'm not that
old). We did Book It! and got pizza coupons for reading books of our own
choosing. And I read books. And more books. And then some more books
because I loved them. And today I read lots and lots of books and am a
librarian with a master's degree who shares books with others and is
fairly literate and quite decent with the English language by my own
estimation. Now I know I'm hardly a case study unto myself, but why
can't we have more of encouraging kids to read what they love for
pleasure and reward rather than forcing them into neat little boxes
labeled with numbers that advertise their "abilities" (or perceived lack
thereof) to the world? Is there any better way to tell a kid that
reading is WORK? That it's supposed to be hard and challenging and no
fun? Woohoo educational system. Way to go. Guess I'll just have to work
extra hard to combat that with reading fun at home with my (nearly done
"cooking") kid. Or maybe I could just reward him for completing
"assigned" reading with video games and TV ....
What are your thoughts on book leveling?
AGHHHHH!!! I am always made so angry by AR/Lexile/et al discussions, and this is no different. I spent all four years I was teaching fighting the stupid AR system in my classroom (mostly successfully). And guess what? MY TEST SCORES WERE GREAT. Give kids stories that inspire them and make them want to read more, and the rest will take care of itself.
ReplyDeleteMy own daughter is 9, a 4th grader, and homeschooled. She still checks out picture books from the library. She's also reading The Hobbit. I'm okay with both those things, because she is a READER.
Sorry to rant all over your post. :) Thanks for putting it out there. Tons of them have been written and people need to keep doing it until the message is heard.
Don't apologize... I love rants! :) I so wish more people (especially in the school systems) felt the same way. Isn't making readers out of children more important than how well they can test over a specific level of book they read? How does forcing them to read certain books inspire a love of reading? My children are four and 1 1/2 and I'm already dreading the future when it comes to AR/Lexile. Their teachers may come to dread me as well. Which I'm perfectly okay with. :)
DeleteI totally agree that we need to keep ranting and am glad others still approve of it! I feel like I do it (on facebook, twitter, wherever) every time this comes up and don't want to be a broken record. It just continues to frustrate me to no end.
DeleteBrandy, you nailed it when you said how absolutely disheartening it is to have a kid say they "can't" read a book because it's the wrong level. It's just sooo sad and frustrating. Or those situations where a frustrated and confused parent comes in needing a certain level of book for a student that both meets their requirements AND the parent's comfort with subject matter. The student doesn't even come because they know they can't get what they like, the parent is stuck in the middle wanting to help and not knowing how, and all we can do is send them home with yet another stack of Jane Austen type "classics" and hope they might not hate them all ... Fortunately my boss supports me spending gobs of time hunting actual current YA books at a higher AR/Lexile/etc level for those kids/parents who ask for help. But then there are still the ones who don't :/
ReplyDelete