Tag Archives: Reading levels

Reading, Teaching

Putting age ranges on books – does it do more harm than good?

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In another post, I offered you my musings about sorting books into levels.  My contention was that we should not give books ability or age levels as that disadvantages certain types of reader and discourages almost all readers. Since I wrote that, I have been thinking about how teachers and parents can choose a book for a child when they have no expertise in children’s books. How can they gauge the appropriateness of a book?

It is obvious that when buying or borrowing books we need a place to start. Where many people start is the age range of the reader.  As a parent, grandparent, auntie or otherwise interested adult, who is not aware of the books out there, this is where you might think of starting. Books shops divide the children’s section into age groups for this very reason.  It’s quite useful too. It saves you doing a huge amount of research. There is some sense in it: children of five have wildly different reading levels, abilities and interests to young people of fourteen.

What I can’t get away from, however, is the judgemental nature of such divisions, useful and convenient as they are. Children might feel we are saying that they should not choose books from an age range lower than their own. How does that encourage reading? We don’t do this to adults.  We don’t put the ‘classics’ section in the ‘higher ability’ bracket, and the autobiography of the latest Love Island winner in the ‘lower ability’ section, even though it is undeniably true that it is much harder to read Wuthering Heights than it is a current ghost-written autobiography.  But we acknowledge that adults choose books for reasons other than their literacy level.  It may be true that some could not read the classic book and others would be bored reading the autobiography, but there will be swathes of people who enjoy reading both.

As I have said many times before. books are about more than levels. They are about the genre (horror, gothic, romance, thriller..), the subject matter (trains, relationships, the Tudors, the drugs problem in inner cities…), the style (literary, colloquial, formal, humorous…) as well as a host of other factors.  Might these things not be equally important ways of categorising books, both in libraries and book shops?  Could we not work out the reading level before buying – by reading a bit of it or looking something as simple as the size of the font – and have our choice driven by what the book is about?  After all, this is what inspires and motivates the reader, surely?  It is how we classify adult books.

Now we come to the main reason why I cannot just advocate scrapping age recommendation on books altogether. How can parents determine the appropriateness of a book to its reader?  As a school librarian I had to steer between giving my customers a wide, varied and interesting choice of books, styles, subjects and genres, and making sure little minds were not confused, horrified or offended by inappropriate ideas and language.  To be fair, most of the horror and offense was coming from parents rather than children, and most children who are truly too young for a book would not make it far enough in to discover the disturbing themes or language.  However, I do appreciate the point that, until a certain age, discussing abortion, suicide and alcoholism may not be appropriate. It may not be done at the level and depth appropriate to the child’s development, and many would suggest that children should not be reading about those kinds of things until they are in their mid-teens.

I have a pretty liberal view of what children should be allowed to read about.  After all, children suffer bereavement, feel themselves to be outsiders because of race or gender, endure domestic abuse and see the effects of drug and alcohol abuse in their own lives in the real world. If these issues are discussed thoughtfully and in a balanced and nuanced way, then they should do more good than harm. However, I do understand that it is not my place to make the decision for parents as to what it is good for their child to read. That being the case, there must be a way for parents, and the other adults who are responsible for bringing up children, to find out if the book has the ‘right’ level of subject matter for their age. One quick and easy way to do this is to put an age on a book and be quite cautious about what that age range can tolerate as regards the intricacies of life.

The ideal would be that the expert in the library or bookshop could give you the information about the book you are thinking of borrowing or buying for your child, or give the information directly to the child. And, the parent is free, if they are concerned enough, to read the book too and work through any issues with the child as they go. The trouble is that quite often those experts are not available.  In schools, often librarians have been replaced by over-worked English teachers or Teaching Assistants; in many public libraries there are volunteers rather than trained staff. Often books are sold in places like supermarkets where there are no staff on hand at all. Another problem, of course, is that what a child thinks they are capable of reading and coping with may differ widely from what their parent thinks. I am very far from thinking that children know what is best for them, but I have seen many instances of children being ‘protected’ from issues that they would be better knowing about.  There are certainly instances of schools dropping the study of the holocaust in Year 7 or 8 because of parental complaints.  Our common humanity (and what happens when we forget it) is something I think we should all learn about. But that is just my opinion.

And that is the point. We are all entitled to our opinion, and so the consumer and the reader need to have all the information to enable them to make a choice based on their own opinion. In conclusion, without taking away the very liberty of choice that I want to create, I cannot get rid of putting ages on books. Though providing expertise in assisting choice is always the best way, whether in providing trained librarians or trained booksellers.

The fact that there are fewer and fewer of these is more damaging than we can yet realise. The proliferation of ‘libraries’, or rather, collections of books, with no expert management, promotion or advice is a rant for another day.

Reading, Teaching

Why do schools put books into levels?

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The answer is that it is convenient. In the absence of a member of staff who knows the books available in the school, and knows their content, reading level and interest level, schools have to find an easy, quick way of matching a book to a child. It is nothing new.  I remember books like that when I was at school.  The excitement of finishing the red books and being allowed to try the silver books – what a sense of achievement!  My children too, at primary, went through the same process. I appreciate that there is a certain amount of sense to the progression through varying levels of difficulty.  But I have a fundamental problem with the idea.

It is not just that, even before some children are out of key stage one they know their reading ability and label themselves as ‘non-readers’, though that is extremely detrimental to any hope of making those children into readers for pleasure. It’s not just that children are picked on for being either too clever or too stupid, though, again, that is another reason why school is a torment for so many children. I have a problem with the idea of finding a level for books at all.

There is a practical problem, even before we address what my fundamental objection is.  How do you find the correct level for a book?  If you have to read every book first, why are you not just recommending them to children as and when they want them without the need to explicitly categorise the book and the child? If you are relying on the companies and their computer driven data, then you will inevitably find that there are some startling anomalies.  Enough to make you doubt how accurate the rest of the data is.  Books in the same series are given hugely different levels – which is a nonsense, particularly if your aim is to create readers rather than just set homework. Books which are clearly classics and difficult in themes and ideas can be given a low level.  Books which are for younger children can be given a high one. I always think about William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience.  They are not complex, they are simple to read and understand, but a huge amount of context and a high level of understanding are appropriate when reading them.

However, the practicalities aside, I hate the idea of giving books levels because it goes against everything I want children to understand about what books are.  They should be gateways to other worlds, keys to knowledge, tutors to teach empathy, journeys to be taken inside your head. They should be what you long to get home to, what you are excited to talk about, what you love to share with your friends and family.  They should not be a way to tell you how clever you are or are not.  They should not be homework.  They should not be hard work.

I have said before on this blog that we all read books of different levels at different times. Who reads to the top of their ability every day? It would be exhausting and disheartening. Pushing children to choose books from a certain level makes them have to push themselves every time they open their book.

I have also talked about the importance of choice when encouraging readers.  Reading levels in school narrows the already restricted choice for the student. Of course we want them to choose something they can read and that they won’t get bored with or struggle with.  But taking away their chance to try something ambitious or relax into something comforting and familiar will not encourage the children to become readers. I read Bleak House when I was 16.  I doubt I understood much of it at that point. No doubt many of the references and ideas passed me by.  But my love of Dickens stems from that point.  No one said, don’t try that, it’s too hard.  I didn’t realise it was, so I got what I could from it.  If it truly had been so far above me, I would have left it and tried something else.  Would that have been so bad?  At the other end of the spectrum, I have just been reading Fantastically Great Women who changed the World by Kate Pankhurst.  Admittedly I was doing so to prepare for a lesson, but, I have to say, I really enjoyed it.  I learned so many things about famous women who should be celebrated. What I am trying to say is that no book is too easy or too hard, unless you yourself decide that it is.

For those children who have lots of choice of books outside school, the book levels in school may not do too much damage.  They may visit the library, be allowed to buy books at a book shop, get presents at Christmas and birthdays of books they might like, and may have books in the house to go to in order to satisfy their reading needs.  For those children who do not have books outside school – and these children are already at a disadvantage educationally – the levels may be restrictive and judgemental enough to put them off reading.

I may be asking for too much of the education system in these dark days, but I would like to see a book expert who recommends books to children based on what they like, what they want to try, what has been recommended to them and, yes, on their reading level.  I would like to see a range of books in every school with no prescriptive demarcation of levels or age. The book expert, well maybe we could call them a librarian (based, you know, on the latin for book) and the place where the books are kept could be called a library.  What do you think?  Do you think it might catch on?