How to Level Trade Books
When leveling trade books, Edward Fry's readability formula is the method most used by people who want to level their own books. Since 1968, this educator has given parents and teachers a method to rank the difficulty of books or other reading materials. It assigns the text a numerical score that correlates to a grade level. This method is time consuming ,so publishers have jumped on the bandwagon with pre-leveled trade books or lists of already leveled titles. Rigby Company, Celebration Press, and Wright Group as well as book leveling gurus Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell (known as Fountas and Pinnell) have these lists.
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Things You'll Need
- Text
- Pencil
- Hand counter
- Copy of Fry's Readability Graph (available copyright free ) from Kathy Schrock at the site listed in the resources at the end of the article. On the site, search "Fry's readability graph".
Instructions
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Fry's Formula
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1
Select three separate 100 word passages from near the beginning, middle, and end a book or article. Count every word, including proper nouns, numeral (numbers spelled out), initializations, but not numbers.
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2
Count the number of sentences in each 100 word sample. Estimate to the nearest tenth of a sentence. Average these three numbers. Add together and divide by three.
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3
Count the number of syllables in each 100 word sample. There is a syllable for each vowel sound. If no hand counter is available, put a mark over each syllable over one in each word and add one hundred. Average the total number of syllables for the three samples.
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4
Plot the average number of sentences (y-axis) and average number of syllables (x-axis) per 100 words on the graph. Most plot points fall near the heavy curved line. The point at which the two points intersect gives the suggested grade level of difficulty for the text.
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5
Randomly select two or three more one hundred word passages, averaging them into the previous group. Only do this if great variability is encountered, either in sentence length or in the syllable count for the three selections, then
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1
Tips & Warnings
When leveling books for a specific child, take into account prior knowledge on the topic, motivation of the reader, concepts presented, and complexity of ideas in the reading material. Also, consider whether leveling is for independent reading or instructional purposes. Instructional level material can be more difficult since reading will be guided by an adult.
Remember that Fry's formula gives an estimated book level. The readability formula only measures multi-syllabic words and complex sentences, but not comprehension of the content of the text. Fry's formula helps determine, but is not perfect in predicting levels of trade books with one hundred percent accuracy.
