In May, I feel it’s important to let my students have some guided experience reading leveled texts.
Yes, I do know that the use of leveled books with their variety of supports—mainly picture clues and repeating language—is not so good for reading instruction and practice. It is prudent that our kindergartners read text that is decodable/readable (based on the phonics we’ve taught them) with no supporting pictures. And that is what my students read 90% of the time, as you know if you’ve been following my classroom for a bit of time.
Last year, I did a thorough cleaning of my classroom and that included getting rid of 80% of my leveled books. I had a pretty good collection, intuitively knowing all these years to collect books that were mostly decodable/readable. But still, I got rid of nearly all my leveled books. How did I decide what to keep? After two years of studying the science of reading and doing some research on the use of decodable books, I decided to keep the books that were at least 80-90% decodable on each page and throughout the book as a whole. Yes, I looked at every single book. Of my collection, many met the criteria. With most collections of leveled texts, the majority will not meet my standard of 80-90% decodable/readable.
Now that I have a much smaller collection of leveled texts and I know that all of them are mostly decodable, it is easy for me to grab my book tubs and quickly select appropriate books for my students.
Two Reasons I Use Leveled Books in the Month of May (actually three)
First, as I just explained above, I know that almost all of my leveled books could also be called decodable books. They are comprised of 80-90% decodable words and/or irregular words/heart words that we have studied.
Second, I am quite certain that my students are going to be given leveled books almost immediately upon entering first grade. The nature of the beast is that our first grade teachers have a lot of beginning-of-the-year assessments to do. They have no aides to help with this. And they’re probably going to have students read independently while they test students individually. They will also have to read independently on a daily basis once the school year is in full swing. So, I think it only fair that I expose my students to these books and help them realize that they can, indeed, read some of them on their own.
Last, a large percentage of my students are reading quite well by this point in the year and thus they are ready to read books like this. Research shows that if students can read two-syllable words, are familiar with the silent e and use it when they encounter one, and also are flexible with r-controlled vowels, then they are probably ready to read books that are not considered strictly decodable books.
What’s your opinion on this? Where are you at with eliminating the use of leveled books in your classroom or using them with more intention (as I am here in the month of May)?
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