Best way to level 2nd grade books..DRA...Guided reading??? HELP

Question

This will be my first year teaching 2nd grade. A friend of mine , who was a 2nd grade teacher, just had a baby and is now staying home.....so yeah for me I got all her stuff. The school that I will be teaching at requires all books in the classroom to be leveled in some way. I have no idea what is the best way. Any of your ideas would be great! Thanks:)

Answer 1

The best thing to do would be to talk to some of the other teachers at your new school and find out how they sort their books.  For example, if the school uses Accelerated Reader, you can log onto the site and look up books' reading levels.  This web site also has information on using different readability tests.

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/sch...

Good luck!

Answer 2

Both posters had some good advice.  I would check and see what leveling system your school uses.  If none is in place or everyone uses different ones, I would suggest using the Fountas and Pinell leveling system because it is more universal.  Here is their website ... books.heinemann.com/Products/002119.aspx   Also here is a conversion chart that I use all the time rigby.harcourtachieve.com/HA/correlation...

I teach first grade and have used guided reading for several years.  I love it because you can really individualize the reading instruction for each student if you have to.

Best of luck!

Answer 3

http://www.educational-psychologist.co.u...

You can determine the reading level of any book with the free program located at the website above.

If you want to use the same text with all students, even though you know it will be too hard for some, the best way is to first, preteach the vocabulary.  Next, using artifacts, videos or classroom discussion, build students background knowledge about the topic.  Then let students preview the text.  Point out any important features that might help them figure out the information that might be important (title, pictures, captions, graphs, headings, etc.).  Then ask them for their predictions for what the text might be about, what events might occur, characters (if any) and what problems the may face, etc.

Once you're ready for the class to read the story, you have a couple of options.  If you still feel the text is way over most students' ability, read it aloud (shared reading) to them as they FOLLOW ALONG (important!).  You can have them Echo Read with you for a re-reading if you want.  If you feel the text is accessible by most but not all, use guided reading.  BEFORE guided reading, students should have the chance to read the text silently to themselves to prepare.  They need a chance to ask about words they don't know, to say words to themselves so they will be less self-conscience when the read aloud.

Shared reading and guided reading should make the text level for all readers, regardless of ability.  

Hope this helps.