From the Principal's Desk: Determine Reading Levels

How do we determine reading levels for students and choose literature books for our curriculum?

At Central Christian Academy, we have adopted a literature based curriculum. Being an author and an educator, I am firm believer that children learn through reading and that the literature used to teach with should be good literature in how it is written and its contents. In choosing the literature for our curriculum, we were faced with the difficult decision of selecting from many pieces of literature. Our goal was to find four books for each grade level that would be the basis for the things we would teach in Bible, language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, art and music. These book also need to show ways our students could learn the specific characteristic of the fruit of the Spirit that we assigned each grade level. We used the help of different literature based curriculum companies and also a measurement of each books reading level.  One measurement used for this is called a Lexile score. This video explains the basic concepts of The Lexile Framework.



Our students are given a Lexile score each year when they take the Stanford. The challenge for the typical teacher facing a heterogeneous classroom of readers is that there is often a gap between the abilities of the students and the required text. We look closely at the student's level and the levels of the literature being used to make sure it fits within a range that challenges them. If the literature we are using is too easy we make note of that and challenge the child with additional reading material. If it is too difficult, we give them the needed support to help them enjoy the material. To learn more about how the Lexiles are used click here.

If you are curious to know the score of our literature books and how they match up to your student contact me at ccaprincipal@discovercentral.org