Reading Guide Gets Poor Reviews

For the first time, state education officials have created recommended book lists linked to the Stanford 9 academic tests and designed to help parents boost their children’s performances on the crucial standardized exams.

The lists, available on the Internet since July 1, are intended to be used in conjunction with the test results that are arriving in the homes of 4.5 million schoolchildren this summer.

Pegged to each student’s reading score, the electronic lists are intended as a do-it-yourself, score-boosting tool. The key to navigating the material is a personal reading list number included this year with each student’s score.

“If you want to get better at pole vaulting, you practice pole vaulting. You want to get better at reading, you practice reading,” said Bob Rayborn, statewide director of California STAR (Standardized Testing and Reporting program) for Harcourt Educational Measurement, which publishes the Stanford 9 test.

But not everyone’s overjoyed by the lists, which can be viewed at www.startest.com. Although online for barely more than a week, the lists have drawn fire.

Frustrated parents have said they have difficulty using them. Librarians complained that the titles are old. Teachers said the lists offer books with overly sophisticated themes to young readers.

And one outspoken education professor, Stephen Krashen of USC, said: “This is an utter waste of money. It’s like giving vitamin pills to starving people.” Krashen said the money to develop the lists would have been better spent buying more school library books.

“The concept of linking reading to Stanford 9 scores is just nuts,” he said. “The way to raise reading scores is to give kids access to books.”

Education officials said the cost of making the lists has been minimal, just part of the state’s $421,986 contract with Harcourt to distribute results of the test to districts, schools and parents.

The tests--which cover reading, math and other subjects--have become all-important because the state is using scores to hold teachers and administrators accountable for how much students learn.

Assigned Numbers Easily Overlooked

The lists are aimed at getting parents to encourage their children to read. But if the family of Patti Silverman of Orange is any indication, that goal may be easily overlooked by even the most involved of parents.

Silverman is a mother of two school-age children. Both eagerly opened their Stanford 9 test results, which recently arrived in the mail.

Yet no one noticed the accompanying paperwork and the inconspicuous California Reading List numbers printed in the lower left-hand corners of the test results.

“I know how to read the scores and unless you turn it over to read the explanation of scores, you don’t even see it,” Silverman said.

When she did find the Web site, Silverman did as suggested and clicked on the list that supposedly matched the abilities of her daughter Rebecca, who is going into the fifth grade.

Silverman found 165 suggested titles, ranging from the children’s story “Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle,” by Betty MacDonald--an independent reader for third graders--to such advanced works as “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald and “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad--books usually studied in high school or college.

To further narrow the range, Silverman had to click on one of four “interest levels”--primary, upper elementary, middle school or high school. The idea, education officials say, is to help parents find age-appropriate books.

Yet critics say there are drawbacks. For one, the reading list numbers--from 1 to 13--tend to be confusing because they don’t correspond to grade levels.

Instead, they relate to readability measures called “lexiles,” which are computerized analyses based on the difficulty of the words and the length of the sentences.

The lexile process, critics say, doesn’t measure content. And content “is kind of a big thing to leave out,” said Villa Park High School English teacher Carol Mooney.

The result: The lists can match books with adult-themed content with children who are technically proficient readers, but may be too young for the material.

In Silverman’s case, Rebecca, who will be 10 on Tuesday, would actually be reading below her assigned level--List 10--if she cracked open J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye,” which the state has on List 7.

Yet Salinger’s work is typically read in high school because of content. As described on the Web site, the book is the “story of an alienated, disillusioned youth who drops out of school and spends three days and nights in New York City on a quest for self-discovery.”

“The words in ‘Catcher in the Rye’ are not hard words but the subject matter is not something you’d want fourth-graders to read,” acknowledged Les Axelrod, educational research and evaluation consultant with the California Department of Education.

He admitted that use of the electronic lists can create situations in which children “might be able to read a book but might not understand it.

“The lists go across all grade levels,” he said. “There’s no rhyme or reason to it other than reading difficulty. That’s where the parents come in: They have to make decisions on subject matter.”

Summer Fare Isn’t Included

Mooney, who teaches freshman and senior English classes, said she found it disturbing that the lists could also guide young readers to material such as Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” which she feels should be reserved for high school seniors. The book includes scenes of rape, murder and mutilation and is on List 8, well within what the Web site indicates is Rebecca’s reading reach.

Rebecca, whose reading comprehension score was 90, has already started her summer reading. And her selections are not on any of the lists. She’s reading books about actress twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen of the television series “Two of a Kind” and about the television series “Seventh Heaven.”

“It’s summer and, as long as she’s reading, I’m not going to push it,” said her mother, who nonetheless checked out List 10 and found a few prospects for Rebecca’s fall reading.

Her sister, Rachel, 14, perused her assigned level, List 13+, but found it too full of history and biography for summer reading. Her own selections? A collection of Agatha Christie novels and a stack of teen magazines.

Readers searching for the wildly popular Harry Potter books will be disappointed. They aren’t on the lists.

That’s because the lists are old, said Judy Kelley, youth coordinator for the Newport Beach Public Library. State officials admit they were compiled from older inventories that are due to be updated.

Diane Levin, a language arts consultant to the state Department of Education, acknowledged that there are “a few flaws and a lot of bugs to work out.” Still, she said she believes the Legislature was well-intentioned in requiring the electronic system.

“The bottom line is, we want to encourage kids to do a lot of reading. Parents often don’t know what books are appropriate. This is one way to help. It’s not the only way,” she said.

But as educator Krashen sees it, the state’s attempt to match books with reading levels is unnecessary. Children’s own experiences in sampling books work better than any formula can, he said.

“People don’t look at Stanford 9 scores when they go book shopping. They know the children and they see what others are reading,” he said.

“If you need help selecting a book, go to someone who knows children’s literature, like a qualified California teacher. The teacher should be able to make some recommendations, the child checks it out and one of three things happens: It’s incomprehensible, it’s dull or it’s interesting.

“It’s not that hard to figure out. It takes a few minutes,” he said.