A leveled book is merely a book that has been assigned a gradient for readability to communicate to educators how difficult a book is to read. The gradient may be a letter, number, grade equivalency, or something else. Leveled books may be written specifically for a publisher and part of their larger leveled book program or a well-known title that has been ranked for readability. Common leveling systems include:
There are two main measures for finding books based on level or text complexity.
The Reading Level Conversion Chart will help you translate an identified measure of complexity in one leveling method to another. Keep in mind that this is an estimate.
The Leveled Reader Station at the TMC has bins of leveled books which are sorted into bins based on their Fountas and Pinnell designation. The station is located near the textbooks.
There are bins for titles from A-Z. HOWEVER, the Leveled Reader Station is significantly more helpful for books in the A-I range. More complex books generally are in other sections of the library. If you need a book which is more complex, the second method below will likely be more helpful to you.
In NoveList Plus you can use Advanced Search to locate titles based on level or text complexity.
You can also look up books you have already found. The best way to do this, is to first identify a book. As a reminder, this is for more standard books and generally not for those which are written as parts of a publisher series of pre-leveled books. Then,
The easiest way to determine the text complexity or level of a book, is to search the title on NoveList Plus. This is a searchable database that can tell you the Lexile measure or Accelerated Reader designation assigned to certain books. These numbers, while different, both communicate the text complexity of a book calculated by formulas which weigh factors such as unique vocabulary, word frequency, total words, number of sentences, length of sentences, patterns, and complexity to decode. A high number means the book is more complex to read and a low number means it is more accessible.
To get started, use the search bar in NoveList Plus to lookup the title of your book. Look through your results. One of three things will happen, identify from the below list what happens for your book title. To see details on how to interpret the text complexity given what you found on your book, expand the accordion in the relevant section.
Your book has an identified Lexile Measure
For some books with a Lexile measure, there is a letter code that comes before the Lexile number. These communicate key information about the book and are explained below:
To interpret what the number itself means use the Reading Comparison Chart linked below to convert the Lexile number to a grade level and/or Fountas & Pinnell level. Please note that there may be some discrepancies.
For example, Alma and How She Got Her Name shows that it has a Lexile Measure of 490L. This tells me that the book is generally good for independent reading for 2nd-4th graders and is a level M book according to Fountas & Pinnell.
Your book does not have an identified Lexile measure, but it does have an Accelerated Reader designation.
If your book has an Accelerated Reader designation, It is broken into three parts: interest level (IL), Book Level (BL), and Accelerated Reader Points (AR Pts). You only need to pay attention to the first two.
1. Interest level communicates what grades will likely engage with the content. It is sorted into clusters represented as LG, MG, MG+, or UG.
2. Book level communicates the text complexity and is assigned a number. To interpret what the number itself means use the Reading Comparison Chart linked below to convert the Accelerated Reader designation (called ATOS Book Level in the column) to a grade level and/or Fountas & Pinnell level. Please note that there may be some discrepancies.
For example, Saturday shows that it has an Accelerated Reader designation of IL: LG, BL: 2.4, AR Pts: 0.5. This tells me that the book is generally interesting to student in the lower grades (K-3) and that the text complexity is good for independent reading for 2nd graders and is a level J book according to Fountas & Pinnell.
Your book is not in NoveList Plus OR it does not have either a Lexile Measure or an Accelerated Reader designation.
It takes time for books to be assigned a Lexile measure and some titles never have one identified.
If you searched a book and it was not found or it does not have an identified Lexile Measure/Accelerated Reader designation, you have two main options:
In the second case, it is best to identify another book of the correct level. Then, compare your selected book with the book of the correct level to decide if they are around the same complexity, or if one is more or less complicated than the other. Pay attention and estimate if the book you are interested in compared to the already identified text has similar vocabulary difficulty, number of words, unique words, number of sentences, sentence length, etc. They can have differences, but should be somewhat similar.
