# data[].attributes.body
1) REVIEW the Assessing Text Complexity strategies from VACCA VACCA & MRAZ.  If currently in the classroom it would be ideal if you conduct these assessments with your students. You can still complete this assignment if you are not in the classroom.

2) SELECT a text that are currently using or will be in a future lesson (this can be ANY book, informational text, poem, play, short story, etc.).

3) CONDUCT one of the readability assessments on your selected text.

4) POST your results in the column to the RIGHT with your NAME on it.

Discuss your rationale for choosing this text/selection, (i.e. is it particularly challenging for a

portion of your students?

What assessment did you conduct? What were the results of your text difficulty analysis?

Please complete by Sunday.

Activities Rubric

Yes | No | Does your “activity” work meet the following criteria?

Post COMPLETE answers to questions in #4 above on class Padlet.

Completed all work in satisfactory (or greater) quality and by Friday of each week.

# data[].attributes.body
I decided to do the Fry readability test on a read to achieve passage. I chose this passage because it is one that we will be reading and working on soon and I was curious to see if the readability that is stated in the actual resource is similar to the fry readability I got. The stated Spache readability is 3.0, or a beginning of 3rd grade level. In conducting the readability test, the passage had an average of 137 syllables and 8.5 sentences, making it approximately a 6th grade level. I'm interested to test this on a few other read to achieve passages to see if I get the same results on them. I am slightly surprised about the results, but I completed it 3 times with the same results.

# data[].attributes.body
Because I teach K-5, students do not spend a lot of time reading text. We are typically reading and/or writing for research purposes. But one book I hear about often is Harry Potter. Many students want to read this series at a young age, but I have noticed that it is more for my 3rd-5th graders, rather than my K-2nd. So I chose this book to get a better understanding of the text complexity.
Because the book is so long, I took excerpts from various chapters. The lexile level of this particular book is 880, which places it between 4th and 5th grade reading level. In chapter 4, pg. 108 in Content Area Reading, it says that an 880 would be stretch lexile band. At my school, we use Fountas and Pinnell, so it placed the book between O-V and the reading maturity 5.42-7.92. I also compared a couple paragraphs in chapter 2 to an online Fry Readbility Graph. I have attached the results. Based on my testing, I believe the book to have a strong text organization with many subplots, complex characters, and timelines. The vocabulary was familiar and conversational, while it still had figurative language throughout. The sentence structure was on the long side, but mostly stuck to simple and compound sentences. Seeing as how the book is about magic and wizards, students do not have prior knowledge and most situations are unfamiliar to the reader. This goes with the cultural knowledge too. This is a fantasy book with its own culture, so the reader would have very limited life experiences. But for me, I think the reason why the students love this series so much is that it is fantastical and unknown. And who wouldn't want to live in a world filled with magic!

# data[].attributes.headline
Goosebumps SlappyWorld #4: Please Do Not Feed the Weirdo By R.L Stine

# data[].attributes.subject
Goosebumps SlappyWorld #4: Please Do Not Feed the Weirdo By R.L Stine

# data[].attributes.body
I chose a Goosebumps book by R.L Stine because I have a lot of students who love this series. Goosebumps was also the first books series I read (and loved) when I was in elementary school. This book series is a combination of mystery, horror (for kids), and fantasy. Goosebumps is filled with monsters and ghosts, which my students love! The particular book that I chose focuses on an evil talking doll. The Goosebumps series uses a lot of figurative language, particularly onomatopoeias, similes and metaphors, which can be challenging for some fifth graders. My district is required to use the American Reading Company (ARC) and their IRLA testing tool to level our books. According to ARC, Goosebumps is a fourth grade book. The Fry Readability test shows the Goosebumps book is a third grade book instead. The average number of syllables  per 100 words is 124 and the average number of sentences is 12.

# data[].attributes.body
I teach 6-8 EC (Adaptive Curriculum), most of the books we read are adaptive version of text and/or leveled text with symbol support. But we do read the Percy Jackson books. the students really like the books because the main character, Percy has a learning disability, that end up kind of being a kind of superpower.  I choose this book, because it is one of the few books that we read the original version not an adapted version of the book, and I wanted to know the readability of this book.
I chose to conduct the FRY readability on the first Percy Jackson book, The Lighting Theif. The Lighting Theif is actually in the Gen Ed 6th Grade Curriculum and has a lexile level of 680 (according to my school librarian). According to the FRY Readability Results, the book falls into a 6th grade level with 8.2 sentences per 100 words and 133 syllables per 100 words.

# data[].attributes.headline
A Chair For My Mother by Vera B Williams

# data[].attributes.subject
A Chair For My Mother by Vera B Williams

# data[].attributes.body
As a prekindergarten teacher, reading assessments do not go beyond NC Foundations for Early Learning and Development or Teaching Strategies Gold.  Both have objectives that focus on:
• Engage in reading
behaviors independently
with increased focus for
longer periods of time.
LDC-8m
• Use and share books
and print in their play.
LDC-8n
• Listen to and discuss
increasingly complex
storybooks, information
books, and poetry.
LDC-8o
Imitate the special language in
storybooks and story dialogue
with accuracy and detail.
LDC-9o
• Use informational texts and
other media to learn about
the world, and infer from
illustrations, ask questions
and talk about the information.
LDC-9p
• Use knowledge of the world
to make sense of more
challenging texts. LDC-9q
• Relate personal experiences to
an increasing variety of events
described in familiar and new
books. LDC-9r
• Ask more focused and detailed
questions about a story or the
information in a book. LDC-9s
• Discuss storybooks by
responding to questions
about what is happening and
predicting what will happen
next. LDC-9t
Hold a book upright while turning pages
one by one from front to back. LDC-10k
• Recognize print in different forms for
a variety of functions (writing message
to friend, pointing to print and saying,
“Those words tell the story.”). LDC-10l
• Recognize print and symbols used to
organize classroom activities and show
understanding of their meaning (put toys
in box with correct symbol and name;
check sign-up sheet for popular activity;
check schedule to learn next activity).
LDC-10m
• With prompting and support, run their
finger under or over print as they pretend
to read text. LDC-10n
• Demonstrate understanding of some
basic print conventions (the concept of
what a letter is, the concept of words,
directionality of print). LDC-10o
• Identify their name and the names of
some friends when they see them in
print. LDC-10p
(https://ncchildcare.ncdhhs.gov/Portals/0/documents/pdf/N/NC_Foundations.pdf).

However, every year I have one or two students who start reading simple books, such as Brown Bear, Brown Bear or I Went Walking.  One year I had a student who loved to read, and he could read a wide variety of books.  His favorite book was A Chair for my Mother.  He could read, pronounce words, and even discuss the book (comprehension).  I wondered what reading level the book was, but never investigated.  Reading levels are not something we consider in prekindergarten.

According to the Fry Readability Graph, this book is a second/third-grade level.  I first conducted the test on paper, and my numbers placed it on a third/fourth-grade level.  Using a free Fry Graph Readability tool from https://readabilityformulas.com/freetests/fry-graph.php, I was able to compare my numbers with the website results.  Appears that I was off on my sentence length averages, which does not surprise me.

I just completed the Early Education LETRS training, and this would be a great book to introduce prekindergarten students to some new vocabulary, such as silverware, bargain, savings, armchair, velvet, tulips, fire engines, charcoal and ashes, apartment, diner, bank exchanged, downtown.  Although we may think our student's know the words in a book, this is not always true.  I look for unique words that may not be fully known or understood, or may even have multiple meanings.  I also keep in mind my 6 ESL students; if the words are new or challenging to English speakers, imagine the challenge ESL students must feel.  I provide visuals for words when possible, (silverware, apartment, fire engine...) as well as connect these words with familiar words- silverware to spoon, fork, and knife that are silver; fire engine to fire truck.

Overall, I am now curious about where the majority of the books I read in Pre-kindergarten fall.  Especially our favorites, such as Owl Babies, Officer Buckle and Gloria, Abiyoyo, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Snowy Day, and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!  Then I consider the complexity and dryness of the books provided by Teaching Strategies Gold's Creative Curriculum studies, which tend to be lengthy and boring.  Then there are the Letter Land and Bridges Math stories.  So many to wonder about.
So little time to count the words and syllables to find out.
RDTS