IMPORTANT NOTICE TO PEOPLE LOOKING FOR BOOKS BY "READING LEVEL"
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I'm not allowed on Twitter any more at work (technically I probably never WAS allowed on Twitter at work, it's only recently come up in discussion)-- probably I'm not allowed to post blogs at work either BUT IT HAS TO EXPLODE OUT OF ME BECAUSE I'VE GONE WEEKS NOT TWEETING THIS EVERY TIME IT HAPPENS AND THIS IS THE FINAL STRAW besides, it's Reader's Advisory, and that's my job, and I DO try to say it to patrons when the issue comes up, though I also try to say it calmly and politely to them even when I want to cry out "THIS IS STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"READING LEVEL" IS A SHAM. THANK YOU.
As I've mentioned before, we're one of the only public libraries in the world that lets students take Accelerated Reader tests for school here at the public library. For awhile we had a stand-alone program, and the kids had to take printouts of their results to school to get credit. But this spring we officially connected into the school district's account. This is an online (though locked to outside access) service, and has access to EVERY test in the AR library-- whereas before we had to buy tests individually. This means only a VERY SMALL portion of our books that HAVE AR tests were MARKED as such. So our system has been that, every unmarked book that comes in, we check the AR database, and if there's a test there we mark it with the district's color-coded stickers to indicate the "reading level" (I used to generally refer to this as "lexile level," but it's technically not an official "LEXILE" number. But it works the same way).
So every day I'm scanning some more books, and at least once a day there's a mind-numbingly inappropriate "level." Like an Easy Reader-- published as such-- coming up as being on a 6th grade level. Probably because it has some nonsense words in it, or what appears to be a lot of run-on sentences. When you use math to determine readability, these things happen.
So today takes the cake. I'm just going to put it out here, and then I'm going to shut up about it.
Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo and Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises are both at a "fourth grade reading level."
Needless to say, something is wrong with this system.
Shall I leave you with that? I shall. The End. I promise to shut up now.
I'm not allowed on Twitter any more at work (technically I probably never WAS allowed on Twitter at work, it's only recently come up in discussion)-- probably I'm not allowed to post blogs at work either BUT IT HAS TO EXPLODE OUT OF ME BECAUSE I'VE GONE WEEKS NOT TWEETING THIS EVERY TIME IT HAPPENS AND THIS IS THE FINAL STRAW besides, it's Reader's Advisory, and that's my job, and I DO try to say it to patrons when the issue comes up, though I also try to say it calmly and politely to them even when I want to cry out "THIS IS STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"READING LEVEL" IS A SHAM. THANK YOU.
As I've mentioned before, we're one of the only public libraries in the world that lets students take Accelerated Reader tests for school here at the public library. For awhile we had a stand-alone program, and the kids had to take printouts of their results to school to get credit. But this spring we officially connected into the school district's account. This is an online (though locked to outside access) service, and has access to EVERY test in the AR library-- whereas before we had to buy tests individually. This means only a VERY SMALL portion of our books that HAVE AR tests were MARKED as such. So our system has been that, every unmarked book that comes in, we check the AR database, and if there's a test there we mark it with the district's color-coded stickers to indicate the "reading level" (I used to generally refer to this as "lexile level," but it's technically not an official "LEXILE" number. But it works the same way).
So every day I'm scanning some more books, and at least once a day there's a mind-numbingly inappropriate "level." Like an Easy Reader-- published as such-- coming up as being on a 6th grade level. Probably because it has some nonsense words in it, or what appears to be a lot of run-on sentences. When you use math to determine readability, these things happen.
So today takes the cake. I'm just going to put it out here, and then I'm going to shut up about it.
Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo and Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises are both at a "fourth grade reading level."
Needless to say, something is wrong with this system.
Shall I leave you with that? I shall. The End. I promise to shut up now.