By Michaela Gordoni
Education experts say reading levels shouldn’t be treated as a reliable guide to gauge what your kid is capable of reading.
“The value for teachers and parents is that leveling is quick, relatively simple, and these systems have been around so long that it’s pretty easy to look up the level of most books you find in the library or at the bookstore,” said Lauren Sittel, a reading specialist and curriculum developer.
“But there are drawbacks to reading level assessments. Because of how approximate both the leveling of a reader and the leveling of books are, there is ample room for error in leveling the child and providing them with books that are roughly readable for them,” she added.
Sher Marshall, a teacher, reading specialist and owner of Your Reading Teacher, says schools’ reading assessment results vary too much.
“A reliable test should give similar results even if the setting changes a little — like testing in the morning vs. the afternoon,” she explained.
But results vary a lot depending on if a child takes it in the morning or afternoon or on how the test is worded.
“Assessments can tell us something, but they’re just one piece of the puzzle, and they rarely give us the full picture on their own,” she added.
The assessments also don’t provide enough information about how well children understand the material and vocabulary words.
“Strong readers don’t just decode words; they bring background knowledge and vocabulary to the table,” said Marshall.
She said some schools use outdated assessments that don’t work.
“If you’ve been told that your child is reading at ‘Level J,’ for example (or any alphabet letter), it’s quite possible your school is using a Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark,” Marshall explained.
This assessment only correctly identified struggling readers about half of the time.
“In other words, the assessment is right about as often as a coin flip,” she said.
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Reading tests “won’t show you how much they really understand, what kinds of books they love, or whether reading is something they look forward to,” emphasized Marshall. “To really understand where they are as readers, we have to look beyond the score.”
A study from 2023 suggests that reading tests don’t reflect what kids are actually learning.
“If Mrs. Smith’s third grade spends a year studying wombats,” reading researcher Tim Shanahan said, “the kids may be superstars when reading on that topic, but what about other texts? Wombat knowledge isn’t likely to improve comprehension of texts on the U.S. Civil War, 2020 elections, or relativity.”
Robert Pondiscio, a senior visiting fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute for education, said, “Reading tests…treat reading comprehension as a broad, generalized skill. To be clear: Decoding, the knowledge of letter-sound relationships that enables you to pronounce correctly written words, is a skill. This is why early instruction in phonics is important.”
“Reading comprehension, the ability to make meaning from decoded words, is far more complex,” he explained. “It’s not a skill at all, yet we test it like one, and in doing so we compel teachers to teach it like one.”
To see how children are developing as readers, Marshall suggests parents observe how their kid’s interest in books changes.
“You can support their growth by gently introducing new kinds of reading alongside their current interest,” Marshall suggested. “If they tend to stick with favorite characters like Junie B. Jones, try adding in some nonfiction with great photos or fun facts.”
Strong readers can find meaning in stories.
“Real reading growth shows up when a child can go beyond simply retelling the story — they can talk about the characters, notice the big ideas, and make connections to their own life,” Marshall said.
Sittel said it’s good for parents to read to their kids even through middle school. It’s good for their development, whether they’re a strong or weak reader.
“Bing read aloud to gives a child’s brain the space to work on the higher-order thinking needed during reading outside of the massive cognitive task of decoding the words themselves,” said Sittel.
If “reading levels” must be tested, it might be better to give them a completely different name since they are misleading about what children’s reading abilities actually are.
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