What are reading levels?

One of the important things to look at when selecting a book, whether it’s for your own kid or to donate to a Mather School student, is the reading level of the book! Reading levels are often listed on the inside jacket or on the copyright page at the front or back of a book. However, because it’s not standardized, it might be difficult to find, but you can easily look it up on the publisher’s website.

Reading levels are assessed in a few different ways, which can make it a little confusing. Most public schools assess students’ reading levels every year, and certain schools may favor certain systems. There are four main systems for reading level assessments.

Let’s use Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, a popular middle grade book, as an example. Here is the reading level breakdown of the book, as listed on the Scholastic website:

Lexile is one of the most common systems, and is denoted by a number ranging from 10–2000 followed by the letter L. The first digit roughly corresponds with the grade level, so here you can see that with a score of 680L, this book is best for 6th or 7th grade readers.

The next system, shown here as “Reading Level: W” is referring to the Guided Reading Level system. The system splits the letters A through Y into groupings for grades K-6. Z denotes 7th and 8th grade reading, and Z+ denotes high school/adult reading. Thus, the further along in the alphabet the letter is, the higher the reading level. Here we see W, near the end of the alphabet, showing that this book is at about a 6th grade reading level. This system is a little controversial due to new advancements in the field of cognitive science.

Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) is a more holistic assessment that checks a variety of literary skills including phonemic awareness, alphabetic phonics, and fluency. DRA gives a level ranging from A1 (beginning readers) through 80 (advanced proficiency).

The Accelerated Reader (ACR) level, also known as ATOS, specifically analyzes the reading level of a book based on grade level, rather than the abilities of the child. The whole number denotes the grade and the number after the decimal denotes how far along in the grade they are. So here, 4.7 shows that a 4th grade student in the 7th month of 4th grade could read this book. However, because the ACR level only indicates the readability of the book, it is important to check other factors. So here, even though a fourth grader could understand the vocabulary and sentence structure in the book, the themes of the story might be a little intense or complex for them.

At the end of the day, reading levels are suggestions, and not rules. Reading levels don’t always give a clear idea of what types of themes are explored in a book, and many kids might be reading either above or below their grade level, but reading levels are a great place to start when looking for a great new book.

This year’s beneficiary for our campaign is the Mather School, which is a K-6 school, so be sure to check reading levels to ensure books fall approximately in line with K-6 reading standards before dropping off your donations at any Massachusetts Tatte location!

In our next post, we’ll give you some tailored suggestions for books based on reading level.