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Librarian Evaluation

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From: School Library Media & Network Communications [mailto:LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Tracey
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 9:53 PM
To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Questons about reading levels for fiction and picture books
At Mackin we get many requests for fiction titles with reading levels,
and since several people have recently commented on this topic, I'd like
to pass along some statistics--statistics that might help you when your
teachers are asking for MS/HS fiction with high reading levels, or for
picture books with low reading levels. (I'll be using AR in my stats.)
Middle school fiction is not written at a 6-8 reading level; neither is
high school fiction. And what surprises many people is that most ADULT
fiction is written at reading levels between 4.0 and 7.0. Why? Because
reading fiction is supposed to be fun!!!! Even though I love learning
new words and have been reading at a very high level since I was in
elementary school, when I read for fun, I don't always want to toil at
it. Most people don't, and publishers know it. Here's just one example
of a popular adult author: only one of Stephen King's novels has a
reading level over 7.0; 20 have reading levels from 6.1-7.0; and 30 have
reading levels from 5.0-6.0.
About a year ago, I put together some informtion for Mackin's
consultants to pass along when they talked to librarians. I created a
list of fiction titles for middle school and high school (all with
starred or positive reviews and published between 2001-2011), including
adult titles that were appropriate for high school. Out of 3069 tiles,
these are the highest reading levels:
6.1-7.0 - 227 titles
7.1-8.0 - 44 titles
Higher than 8.0 - 4 titles
There were NO titles with a reading level higher than 8.3.
Reminder: These stats are for current, highly-reviewed FICTION titles
only. Only 9% have a reading level over 6.0.
The problem with reading levels, as someone mentioned recently, is that
most of them are determined by the difficulty of the vocabulary and
maybe the sentence structure and paragraph length. Most of the titles
with higher reading levels are classics (not used in my list), but even
there you'll find many reading levels are lower than 6 or so. Here are
some examples (from unabridged versions):
Lord of the Flies - 5.0
The Old Man and the Sea - 5.1
Dawn (Elie Wiesel) - 5.4
To Kill a Mockingbird - 5.6
All Quiet on the Western Front - 6.0
The Count of Monte Cristo - 6.3
I know that I'm preaching to the choir here, but I just have to say it:
Challenging fiction is more than just big words. You wouldn't give
Fahrenheit 451 (5.2) or East of Eden (5.3 and 600 pages!) to a 5th
grader, or Dracula (6.6) to a 6th grader--just because they are reading
at that level. After elementary school, fiction is challenging because
of characterization and themes and figurative language and all that
other stuff which is very difficult to test in 5 or 10 computer-scored
questions.
The reading program I used here was AR, but I personally had the same
problem with lexiles. My younger son, in 9th grade at the time, had to
read a fiction book at his lexile level: 1500+. After checking out the
options on lexile.com (I remember several under-graduate philosophy
textbooks), I called his teacher. She said she'd let him go down to
1300; even then, most of what we found were classics (this was supposed
to be a book for fun). We finally chose The Sword of Shannara at 1220.
And on the opposite end of this issue, someone mentioned the problem
with the high reading level of many picture books. I made another list,
this one of picture books with AR levels, published from
2002-2012--again all highly reviewed. Out of 1371 titles, here are the
reading level totals:
Lower than 2.0 - 178 titles
2.0 to 2.9 - 442 titles
3.0 to 3.9 - 465 titles
4.0 and above - 286 titles
In general, picture books are for reading to, and since kids can
understand at a higher level than they can read, most picture books are
not meant for most kids in grades K-1 to read by themselves. Well over
half (55%) of the picture books on this list have a reading level of 3.0
or higher.
This got pretty long, and I hope this information is helpful. It is one
thing to have to say to a teacher or a parent of a middle/high school
student: "I can't find books at that reading level," or "There aren't
many novels with that reading level." It's another thing to be able to
say, "Out of over 3000 novels for middle and high school, only four have
a reading level over 8.0."
Tracey Luehrs - MLIS
Mackin Educational Resources
Minnesota
tracey.luehrs@mackin.com
mimla@charter.net
"Google can bring you back 100,000 answers; a librarian can bring you
back the right one." - Neil Gaiman

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it Legal or Ethical to Copy to DVD?
Our reading of the copyright law
Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians (.pdf)
United States Copyright Office | No date.

See pages 11-12 , Text of Section 108.
VHS to DVD
VHS to DVD | August
Excerpt:
In most cases, yes, it would be a copyright violation. Reproducing a VHS to DVD without the prior permission of the rights-holder is an infringement of copyright. This kind of reproduction is not exempt because it is not “fair use” as defined in Section 107 of the Copyright Code and it does not qualify as a lawful reproduction under Section 108 of the Copyright Code.
No, copyright law does not allow the transfer of formats (e.g. tape to DVD) without permission of the copyright holder, EXCEPT for the limited provisions of Section 108 of the copyright law ...
Simpson, Carol. Copyright for Schools: A Practical Guide. Worthington: Linworth, 2005. Print.
{simpson_excerpt-VHS2DVD_w.jpg}
(Simpson 210)