[ISLMA-Share] Organize library by Lexile

[Email list for the Illinois School Library Media Association]

The trouble is if a student is really interested in something; dinosaurs,
astronomy, they will read far beyond their "score."  Do we really want to
prevent this?

Lexile primarily is based on length of sentence and vocabulary.  Complex
reads, such as Steinbeck or Hemingway, get ranked low due to short
sentences or lots of dialogue, when they are actually a challenging read
with flashbacks, etc., -- which is to say it is certainly not a foolproof
system.

You could compromise -- I did put Lexile on spine labels (or you could do
color screens) without reorganizing the collection -- primarily to say it
was available, and to remain relevant.  Have seen stars, etc. used, but
this gets into the stigma of "being a bluebird."

And/or you could have a list of titles by lexile available for the teacher
(you will find certain authors will all be in the same range) -- so you
could even provide a list by author and leave it to the teacher to
recommend authors to individual students.

*Mitinet* is a firm that will lexile your entire collection (if a score is
available).  Follett can help with new acquisitions. This is not
inexpensive; you may ask if they would rather have funds going to books or
to categorizing.

I had thought this was becoming passe; too bad.  One teacher I admire has
the students read into the book, and if they do not understand five words
into a passage, perhaps it is too hard, and choose another.  Much
preferable.

It gets really annoying when a 1200 lexile student can only read Dickens --
silly.

Mary

Mary Spevacek
East Aurora High School
mspevacek at d131.org


On Thu, Feb 16, 2017 at 6:51 PM, Email list for the Illinois School Library
Media Association <islma at list.railslibraries.info> wrote:

> I have been asked to organize a elementary library by Lexile.   Can you
> help me arguments pro and con?
>
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