What are Leveled Texts and How Are They Used?

Experts in the field of literacy have analyzed the text characteristics of a wide range of texts to determine the text's readability level. Using running records as a guide, as well as conversations with students and students' written responses to the books they are reading, teachers select levels of texts that might be appropriate for each child. Of course, authors did not write literature with reading levels in mind, and students' schema (background knowledge) for a topic is a significant factor as well. For example, a child who is extremely interested in sharks and has a lot of background knowledge might be able to read a more complex text than a child who is new to the topic.

How Do Teachers Use Leveled Texts in their Teaching?

Teachers use the characteristics of texts levels to guide their instruction with the whole class, small groups or individual students. Specifically, teachers use leveled texts during Guided Reading groups to plan instruction that will prepare students for the next level of text complexity. Additionally, text characteristics guide teachers' conferences with students. For example, in books in Level J, the characters in the text are often "flat": their feelings change across a text but their traits do not. Therefore, a teacher might ask a student, "How do the character's feelings change from the beginning of the text to the end?" Conversely, in Level P texts, we would expect that a character's traits and motivation would change from the beginning to the end of the book, so teachers can use this information to guide students' comprehension of texts.