I whole heartedly believe in the power of reading. Reading is a great way to learn things. It is a great way to escape your reality and enter another. Reading helps you peer into the minds of other people, even people who passed away centuries ago.

Reading is a very important skill, and I try to help where I can.

I have just spent the last 2 months leveling all of the books in my class library. I took them one pile at a time and went through each and every book (I have 8 books left). I leveled them by the Raz-Kids level system.

I know this is not the standard, and I know this system is very niche. But here is the thing. My school uses Raz-Kids for all of our reading assessments. We use it for our digital reading library. It is the system the children know.

So how did I level books by Raz-Kids?

There is a chart supplied on their website that give extremely broad strokes, a comparison of their levels to Every other leveling system. The chart shows a conversion to ATOS, to F&P, to Lexile, you name it. So I began scanning the books with an AR-Book finder to find the ATOS level, and convert it over. If it doesn’t show up there, I used AI to search for the best fit.

It was a projet I felt was important. but here’s the thing. I’m a terrible reader.

I can read out loud quite fast. But I don’t retain any of it. I read quite slow if I want to understand it. Sometimes rereading a section 3 or 4 times to think about it it as I go.

One of the methods I have used is the reformat method. If I am reading digitally, I will copy the text into MS Word. Then I read through line by line and reformat it as I go. I will fix the indents, adjust the spacing, and moving the cursor along as I go is a safe speed for me. It keeps me focused on the text and gives me enough time to analyse, it. It also gives me something to fidget with while I read: The keyboard.

If I cannot do this, or if I am reading a paper book, I need isolation. I cannot read with any distractions. Music helps me focus, but if I hear people talking, or the sounds of the tv, or someone needs to talk to me, I have to go back and reread the last 2 or 3 pages to catch myself up. If several distractions occur nearby, i may have to go back a whole chapter. And this is if I like the book I am reading.

Research materials don’t work so well. I often find I have to skim the pages, espacially if I have to work in a research group or discussion group. I can’t go full slownedd to understand the text as the rest will be waiting. So I have to skim and give my best guess about the contents.

I really don’t like this method. If it is worth reading, it is worth reading well. But that means I need my time to do so.

This has come up recently as I was talking to some coworkers about difficulties some of my students face. and I realized 1/2 of my grade 2 class reads for comprehension at my speed or faster….

I can read a lot more difficult passages, but when it comes to reading basic children’s stories and understanding what was said, I am slower. I always pre-read the files before reading to the class for this reason.

But still.

I love books.

We need to accept all of the children and adults who have difficulty with this though.