All Reading Recovery Teachers use leveled books in their lessons, but do you know how the Reading Recovery Book List works?  An incredible amount of effort goes into the process by trainers, teacher leaders, and teachers.

There are thousands of titles on the Reading Recovery Book List. Each book is assigned a level from 1 to 30 to indicate increasingly complex texts. As reading and writing skills improve, students read more difficult books in their lessons. New books are always released, so the book list is updated yearly. This year, Reading Recovery is piloting a new timeline to streamline the process.  

Because children in Reading Recovery programs have specific needs related to a fine gradient of difficulty in texts, all texts submitted must go through a rigorous research-based process. Before a book is leveled, it is first carefully reviewed by the Book Leveling Committee to ensure it’s appropriate for Reading Recovery students. After the Book Leveling Committee moves a book onto the next phase, field testing begins.  

Book leveling is a fantastic ongoing professional development opportunity! Many teacher leaders volunteer to host field testing sites. Next, both teacher leaders and teachers receive training on how to level books and carefully follow the field-testing procedures; each book is separately leveled ten times. As a thank you, all volunteer teachers keep the texts they field tested. By the end of January, the field-tested levels are submitted for review to the Book Leveling Committee. 

After review, the Book Leveling Committee adds new books Reading Recovery Book List in the spring. An updated book list would not be possible without the committee and volunteers that work hard throughout the year to review and level the new books. 

Thank you for all you do, Book Leveling Committee and field testers! 

Book Leveling Committee: Sandy Brumbaum, Jennifer Burns, Sue Duncan, Tracee Farmer, Adria Klein, Leslie McBane, Annie Opat, Lisa Patrick, Nancy Rogers-Zegarra, Pat Scherer, Journey Swafford 

 Want to get involved? RRCNA is currently accepting applications to host a field-testing site. We invite teacher leaders with five or more years of experience to indicate their interest through this form. 

There are many other ways to get involved with RRCNA! Members can sign up for volunteer opportunities in the Community Forum.