By Connie Briggs, Mary Anne Doyle, and Wendy Vaulton

It has been said before but bears repeating: Text levels are for teachers, not readers. Text levels should never define a child’s reading journey.  Furthermore, a child should never identify themselves, or select books, according to a level.  When those practices happen, it can lead to the deleterious effects of leveled lives in terms of opportunities to learn, become literate, and realize potential. Leveled texts are an important tool for teachers to use to differentiate instruction and teach according to children’s needs.

This blog addresses teachers’ use of leveled text in primary grade instruction.

 

The Place of Leveled Texts

High quality instruction within a comprehensive literacy program includes many types of texts for establishing foundational literacy skills, strengthening literacy skills, building content knowledge, and extending comprehension of complex texts. Every primary classroom should provide a variety of genres of beautiful trade books used for teacher read-alouds and discussion, large print books for shared reading, and texts of many levels for the students’ independent, self-selected reading. These experiences provide opportunities to build student confidence and competence and instill a love of reading. One integral part of the day includes flexible, small group instruction with a valid gradient of leveled texts. Because we know that one size does not fit all, and each child has different instructional needs, 20-30 minutes of explicit instruction, with close observation and scaffolding by the teacher, provides targeted instruction supporting students with texts that are accessible to them (i.e., at the appropriate level).   The teacher’s use of leveled texts provides this opportunity and ensures ongoing literacy development.  (See the additional note below for discussion of the instructional level.)

What is a Text Gradient?

A text gradient is simply a way of assessing the difficulty, or complexity, of a text and the challenges it may present to a student.  Different text leveling schemes have existed since the 1840s.  Recently, it has been demonstrated that when the leveling process accounts for the  multi-dimensionality and sophistication of texts during  leveling (D’Agostino & Briggs, 2025),  a valid text gradient results.  With this dependable indication of text levels, teachers are able to identify appropriate texts for the range of students they teach.

The Importance of Leveled Texts to Students

Key reasons leveled texts are important to student learning include:

• The beginning leveled texts provide students’ opportunities to learn the foundation skills of reading, including concepts about print. Many students come to school  understanding these concepts because they have had books in the home and have been read to by caregivers.  Those children who have not had opportunities to engage with books or have not yet noticed how print works in English need specific instruction addressing foundational concepts of print and how books work.
• As readers gain control over concepts about print they need opportunities to encounter high frequency words and learn to apply newly acquired decoding skills on unknown words in continuous, meaningful text.
• As text levels increase, the complexity of leveled texts increase in multiple ways, including use of more multi-syllable words and more advanced vocabulary. These texts offer opportunities for students to problem-solve, monitor, and read fluently with comprehension.
• Reading skills are best learned and practiced on texts that are under a child’s control. When a text is on an instructional or easy level, the brain is freed up to focus on the new learning.

The Importance of Leveled Texts to Teachers

Teachers learn about each reader’s literacy processing abilities as they instruct and assess using leveled texts. With a set of leveled texts, arranged in a valid gradient of difficulty, teachers look beyond numbers to the children’s precise strengths and needs when processing print and its meaning.  Leveled texts give teachers an instructional tool to provide the students practice with what is known and provide an acceptable challenge of new learning.

In Conclusion

Teachers expose students to a variety of texts in different formats, irrespective of level, during the majority of the instructional day. Their use of leveled texts in classrooms is a small, but important, part of daily, comprehensive literacy instruction. Observant teachers document each child’s learning, regrouping and advancing text levels as children demonstrate proficiency.

Books are leveled, not children!  Leveled books are but temporary scaffolds used by teachers to move students forward as proficient readers who will be able to read more complex texts as they continue to develop as readers. When instructed with appropriately leveled texts, students feel successful, engaged, and motivated while gaining proficient literacy skills.

An Additional Note about Varying Levels of Text Difficulty

It is important to advocate for opportunities for a wide range of text reading in the school experiences of readers, and this includes alternative genres, topics, authors, and reading levels.  We understand that students often read at levels higher (more difficult) than we might expect if they have special motivation to do so.  Often this will be a topic they are invested in or have special knowledge of (e.g. football, soccer, horses, pop stars).  This is usually observed in those students who have gained beginning reading skills, have secured foundational reading and decoding skills, and are able to continue learning from their independent efforts.  They should be encouraged to pursue their reading interests irrespective of text level, whether harder or easier than a teacher might consider appropriate for the learner’s skill level.

Teachers should remain judicious in choices of text for instruction and be aware of the impact of alternative levels of reading for elementary learners.  Consider the following:

Independent level:  Learning Opportunities

Independent leveled texts are easy for the child to read and provide rich learning opportunities. In independent leveled text students are able to:

• build fluency,
• experience proficient literacy processing (reading as an expert reader),
• focus on meaning,
• apply decoding skills successfully on the run,
• engage in self-monitoring,
• respond to meaning with a personal connection,
• learn new vocabulary, and
• acquire deeper understanding of concepts.

Enhanced learning often results because their successful reading (processing), which entails recognizing or decoding words with ease, allows them to attend to aspects of the text that might be new to them (e.g., new words or literary features).  These reading opportunities allow readers to view themselves as  successful readers, experience enjoyment and motivation for reading, gain enhanced appreciation of the place of literacy in their lives, and view reading as a life-long endeavor.

Instructional level:  Learning Opportunities

The instructional level is a text level that is read by the reader with the support of the teacher.  In instructional level texts, students meet challenges that with teacher support extend the learner’s competencies in the wide range of literacy skills, including decoding unknown words, acquiring word meanings, monitoring problem solving and applying fix-up strategies, self-correcting that is self-tutoring, comprehending what is read, gaining familiarity and control of a wide range of literary conventions, including text structure and author’s purpose.  With instructional support, students experience successful problem-solving and gain confidence in their reading and thinking abilities.

Frustration (al) Level: Challenges to Learning Opportunities

The frustration(al) level is a text level that presents challenges beyond a student’s current level of proficiency even with teacher support. As a result, the reader is unable to gain proficiency as there are too many challenges in the targeted text.  Decoding skills are not proficient for the number and complexity of unknown words found in the text (often multisyllabic words). The texts present many challenges:

• decoding skills are not yet proficient
• so many new vocabulary terms that the demand surpasses the learner’s capacity to learn and integrate;
• concepts that do not link to the learner’s background of understandings and therefore, even with a teacher’s explanation, are too difficult for the reader to comprehend and learn.
• unknown words (often multisyllabic words) difficult to recognize as that require more advanced decoding skills than the reader controls;
• unfamiliar vocabulary terms that surpass the learner’s capacity to learn and integrate;
• new concepts that do not link to the learner’s background of understandings and therefore, even with a teacher’s explanation, are too difficult for the reader to comprehend.

The learner experiences inability to read fluently, to decode unknown words independently, to self-monitor and self-correct, and hence the need to rely on frequent teacher direction.  The learner is not able to comprehend at a level that ensures new learning of concepts and vocabulary.  Such unsuccessful experiences impact the learner’s motivation and confidence negatively.  Reading could easily become an avoided activity.  Additionally,  experiencing struggles and lack of success may lead to learned self-helplessness making new learning hard for the student.

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About the authors

Connie Briggs is an Engaged Emeritus Trainer and Professor Emeritus at Texas Woman’s University

Mary Anne Doyle is chair of the International Reading Recovery Trainers Organization Executive Board and has served as consulting editor for the Marie Clay Literacy Trust. She is a member of the North American Trainers Group, a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and former director of Reading Recovery in Connecticut.

Wendy Vaulton is the Gay Su Pinnell Endowed Chair for Reading Recovery and Early Literacy at Lesley University. She serves as the center’s Reading Recovery trainer, supporting teacher leaders in five states.