Reading level systems are often used by schools to assess and track their students reading comprehension skills. The reading system analyzes books based on sentence structure, vocabulary, even length of the book. Levels are assigned to books, and student assessments are used to determine which “level” is suitable for that child. But each reading level system uses a different algorithm to analyze the text within a book. For example Lexile measures and analyzes semantic difficulty (word frequency or repetition) and syntactic complexity where Accelerated Reader assesses books based on page count, numbers of syllables per word, and average words per sentence.

While these systems may seem somewhat similar, the weight each places on different data points varies and, as such, books are ‘leveled’ quite differently. One might assume that book might at least appear in the same order from one metric to another, but this is not the always the case. Leveling systems and level readers are oh so arbitrary.

Teachers are often mandated by their districts to assess their students, but are these assessments giving the actual picture of decoding, fluency or reading comprehension strengths and weaknesses? While determining a book’s ‘levels’ may vary by assessment methods, determining learner’s ‘levels’ are often non-existent. Before we can assign ‘levels’ to learners it is important to assess their reading skills. What are their abilities in letter knowledge, phonemic awareness, decoding, fluency, comprehension et al. An effective reading program includes assessments of all of the skills needed to make successful readers. Further without a baseline assessment of learner’s skills how can we measure if they are actually improving or just as important where the instructor should be spending time helping the reader.