Figuring out reading levels

[kkapfe]

This fall I want to give a bit more freedom to my girls (grades 7, 5, and 3) with regards to their reading. This past school year they used a BJU reading curriculum that included a reader, an extensive workbook with the reader, and specific novels to read. I want to give them an opportunity to choose their own books based on their individual interests and have them learn about writing book reports instead of having a "workbook" and specific novels required.

I want to be able to say to them, "Let's go to the library and choose your book. It can be about anything as long as it fits the genre" (non-fiction, fiction, poetry, etc). I realize that each of them with be on different levels so I would like to be able to say to my 7th grader, for example, "Your book must be at least 250 pgs."

How can I find out what is an appropriate level for each of their grades? Also, what are some common genres? I'd like to be able to cover a different genre each month.

[hscoach]

Here are a couple of links that should be helpful for you:


http://www.breitlinks.com/my_libmedia/c ... genres.htm

http://home.comcast.net/~ngiansante/

[hscoach]

The first link (about genres) won't paste in correctly, but if you put in that exact address, including the part at the end that is not blue, it will go to the right page.

[NicoleMPratt]

I look at the lexile number... the first number shows what grade level the book is recommended for... such as a 900 book would be ninth grade, a book with a 600 level would be sixth grade. I allow them to pick one low, one medium, and one high level book for the year, but it also depends on their reading ability. (google lexile number and it will bring up a website where you can input the book title and get a lexile number for most books)

It's not so much the number of pages as much as it is the material within those pages. You can have a 100 page book where it is written at an eleventh grade level and they may not comprehend much of it.