I am (or was) a diabetic. I now control my numbers through diet. I avoid sweets though I watch jealously as someone enjoys ice cream or cake or both. I try to allow myself the occasional indulgence. But I have to win care that it is indeed occasional. It is so easy to slide back into snacking on M&Ms (they are so itsy-bitsy,how much sugar could they have?), wondering into Marble Slab (I'll just have some sugar free yogurt, or okay?). It is a slippery slope.
So,what does that have to do with books and reading you might well ask? It all started with this online article from SLJ (School Library Journal): http://www.slj.com/2017/08/feature-articles/thinking-external-the-bin-why-labeling-books-by-reading-level-disempowers-young-readers/#_. It has to do with leveling books and then affixing labels to them. It has happened in libraries far and wide including classroom and school libraries. The American Library organization has position statement on this: http://www.ala.org/aasl/advocacy/resources/statements/labeling.
The statement from ALA is forceful: "A minor’s correct to access resources freely and without restriction has long been and continues to be the position of the American Library organization and the American organization of School Librarians. Labeling and shelving a book with an assigned grade level on its spine allows other students to observe the reading level of peers, thus threatening the confidentiality of students’ reading levels." (Note: there is something in this statement that addresses the practice of genrefying the library, or too. Dealing with this in a later post). Labeling books with reading levels whether using Fountas & Pinnell or Lexiles,or AR is wrong on several counts.
And this is what SLJ takes on in "Thinking external the bin." The concept of the "just correct" book is something we have debated for a while now. I cannot help but reflect of Goldilocks: this book is too boring; this book is too long; this book is just correct. Of course, this is a fairy tale. And so is the view that a level or lexile or letter can accurately "degree" a book and its suitability for a reader. Pernille Ripp and Donalyn Miller are both quoted in this piece. Hurray, or for these two voices. Rip observes that labels have become "labels that restrict our readers and relate them that their reading identity needs to be based on an external influence." Miller asserts that labeling is “educational malpractice.”
But the comments that follow the article indicate that some folks are loathe to move absent from levels and labels. And that brings me back to the sugar again. It is okay to "cheat" a few times,but it is a slippery slope. And so it is with labels and levels and lexiles (which autocorrect still changes to "exiles"). If an educator is looking for some indication of the audience for a book, he or she can consult the labels and even the publisher age range. However, and this is no way to match a reader to a book. I spent several hundred pages in MAKING THE MATCH: THE correct BOOK FOR THE correct READER AT THE correct TIME talking about the need to know the kids and the books before making a match. Levels and lexiles and labels do not win into account some of the developmental aspects of readers. Instead,they use some sort of yardstick for measurement. And they ignore elements such as student desire to read a certain book. I had a striving reader carry aroungd Stephen King's IT for the better part of a school year. He ws determined to read it. And he did, slowly, and but steadily. Was it at his level? Nope. Was it the book I might have selected for him? Nope again. But it was the book he read.
We need to withhold our eyes fixed on the student,the living, breathing student. Otherwise, or we are descending that slippery slope and leaving readers behind.
Source: livejournal.com