Please read the excerpt below from "What Can Harry Potter Teach Us About Children and Reading?" By: Maria Salvadore (2005). The reading test method is highlighted, below. http://www.readingrockets.org/article/684
"Readability" is a term that teachers and librarians use to describe at what grade or ability level a piece of writing can usually be read. Many publishers will include a book's readability level on the back cover. There are various formulas to determine readability, some based on the number of letters per word or the number of words per sentence. The whole point is to match books to readers. We want to find books that a child can read successfully. What a child is able to read depends on his or her ability to decode words. This is being able to apply what he knows about the relationship between the sounds he hears and the spelling of words he sees on the page. Reading level also depends on how well a child understands the structure of language. Readers use that information to help them figure out (or decode) unfamiliar words as they read. I knew that my son could decode most of the words in the first Harry Potter book because I used the "Five Finger Test." I asked him to read a paragraph from the middle of the book aloud for me and I counted the number of words he couldn't read (not including proper names or coined words like Quidditch). If he missed more than five words or couldn't read the piece readily, then the book was probably too difficult. This is important to know because readers who spend all of their time figuring out words don't have the mental energy to understand or even enjoy what they're reading and then become frustrated. . . .
Please print this excerpt from 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith (use the "Print this page" link at the top). Have a grownup perform the five finger test for the whole passage. Excerpt from 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith Pongo knew that if he could not cheer her up she would never be able to face the hardships that lay ahead. And he thought he could do with some cheering up himself. So he began a little speech, intended to give them both courage. "I sometimes think," he said, "that you and I have become a bit pampered. Well, pampering does good dogs no harm, provided they don't come to depend on it. If they do, they become old before their time. We should never lose our liking for adventure, never forget our wild ancestry." (They were then passing the Zoo.) "Oh, I know we are worried about the puppies, but the more we worry, the less we shall be able to help them. . . ." |
If you miss more than five words or cannot read this passage comfortably, please wait at least one half year before enrolling in a Younger Readers' Series theme. If you do fine with this passage, you can read any book in this series. If your grownup wants to discuss readability with a CTY administrator, please have the grownup phone 410-735-6140 (Dr. Steve Barish) or 410-735-6166 (Ms. Kathy Thurlow). | 
