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Proficiency Levels of Novels
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30 thoughts on “Proficiency Levels of Novels”
Carol Gaab has written a lot of novels, but not as many as she is credited with above. She published them, but didn’t write them all.
People who wrote some of those books are: Nathaniel Kirby (Guerra Sucia, Los Baker, and Maldicion), Karen Rowan (Isabela and Carl novels), Blaine Ray (vida muerte en cusco and Pobre Ana Bailo Tango), Carrie Toth (La Calaca Alegre and Hija del Sastre), Anonymous (Vida y Muerte en la MS), Kristy Placido (Robo en la Noche ?? and Noches Misteriosos), Katie Baker ?? (La Llorona de Mazatlan), Mira Canion (Rebeldes, Vampirata, Agente Secretos)
Yeah I didn’t have that information and was waiting for somebody to offer it. Thanks Jim – I will fix the above.
Thanks for this, Ben. I know there’s another list out there like it, but I forgot to bookmark it. At parent-teacher conferences a few weeks ago, I found myself recommending novels as the universal panacea for both my struggling kids and my bored 4%ers. This will help me target my suggestions a bit better.
Reading- The Universal Panacea. I like it.
I have recently compiled a list of books I could find for beginning Chinese levels. I added comments about each item but don’t feel qualified to categorize them with the proficiency level terms. Here’s the post for those who may want it:
http://www.tprsforchinese.blogspot.com/#!http://tprsforchinese.blogspot.com/2014/03/draft-chapter-books-graded-readers.html
Bryce Hedstrom has ranked the Spanish novels. The lists is missing a few of the newer books. After reading many of these books, I agree with most of the order.
http://www.brycehedstrom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/RANKING-THE-NOVELS.pdf
It was great to see the ranking of the novels. I’m currently choosing another novel for my students and this list was a big help! Thanks for posting.
Just curious, but do you know what criteria Bryce used to rank the novels?
Hi everyone!
Sorry to hijack this post with something non directly related but I wanted to pass on this link to a ted talk video from a few month ago. Watch it despite the title which may scare you.
Krashen wrote on the Moretprs today that it is a good idea to show this to our students.
Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0yGdNEWdn0
Teri, at the bottom of Bryce’s pdf, he has more info on the ranking.
“The novels are organized from easiest to hardest reading level based upon based on their comprehensibility to the average HS language Spanish student. . . based upon feedback from students, teacher experience and information provided by authors.”
and I think that we need to respectfully reserve the right to adjust the above levels based on our students and on how we use the novels.
For example, I have not been able to use Esperanza successfully, even as a class novel, with lower levels without an ENORMOUS amount of scaffolding. But perhaps that is just me or my students.
My students who read independently in English can read independently much more successfully in Spanish, so within a group that might be labeled as Novice-Mid, I will choose one novel to read as a class, but need to offer a wide variety of novels for independent reading.
When it comes to independent reading I find that two things matter:
1. Ability to read and visualize without struggling…usually, the “lower” the reading level, the better.
2. Interest in the characters, problem, setting etc….some sort of personal connection to the novel.
Use your own knowledge of your students, and your instincts…not what the author or publisher claim is the level of the novel, when you decide what to purchase for your students.
with love,
Laurie
Laurie,
May I ask what novels you find more success in? I used Esperanza for a high school class last semester and they did fine. Now I’m starting it for my 8th graders (who are at the same level, language-wise), and I am wondering if they’re going to be able to handle it. Some of them struggled through “Patricia va a California” last semester.
I think that it depends on whether or not they are reading as a class or independently. What made Esperanza difficult for 9th students was that they had no background in any of the political or social issues involved with the book, so they had a difficult time understanding what was happening in the story, particularly because she crosses the border several times. When we tried it with 11th graders, it was much easier for them to understand what was happening.
Then again, our goal may be different than yours. We want students to be able to read nearly all of the book independently and truly understand it so that we can engage in deeper discussion with them. When we reach above that level, most of the work we do becomes “assigning meaning” to the text, rather than using the language to discuss the characters, the plot, the connections etc. Does that help?
Each of us will have our own approach to the novels. If it works, it’s great! If you find that your kids are struggling, my vote is to “level down”, or slow way down. Confidence-building is a big part of our work in our little school so we tend to “level down”.
When they read independently though, as Bryce has them do, it is interesting to see what they choose!!
with love,
Laurie
I wish more of these– esp the beginner novels– were in mixed verb tenses. Blaine himself now recommends starting with all necessary verb tenses from day 1.
I’m “solving” this problem– as with movietalk– by reviewing present-tense chapters in the past tense. During reading I’ll circle and personalise and do comp checks in present. Then I review chapter in past.
I totally agree with you Chris! This is what Krashen recommends in his non-targeted CI article. The books shelter grammar. Maybe that makes independent reading easier for true beginners, but we need some beginner novels that mix all the tenses. If the different tenses all share a common-looking verb stem, then I’d suspect the books to be comprehensible.
I noticed an interesting thing in January. I did a fair amount of PQA this year with the beginner kids– what did you do last night, what are you planning this weekend etc– and they got pretty good at saying all that stuff. None of it however ended up on their final writing assignments.
What ended up in their writing was, stuff from stories I’d asked (and that we then read), and from the novel (Berto y sus buenas ideas). There didn’t seem to be much transfer from purely oral stuff to writing (even though I did always establish meaning w/ English on board for oral things). There was some transfer from reading to oral output though. (not much).
So anyway I am wondering why this is, and speculating that, for simple returns on invesment, reading is our single best bet.
Maybe they’re getting a sense that the oral doesn’t “count”? Or perhaps that’s just the way their brains are working.
For my more advanced class (level 2-ish, let’s say), in addition to the weekend chat, I have a stuffed duck that goes home with someone every weekend. They take a picture of him doing something and email it to me. I display it in a powerpoint and we talk about it in the past tense. (They’ve never had past tenses before.) I always turn it into a writing exercise, either with a short Dictado or a just a Write-with-me thing, which we then R&D. Those past tenses are showing up in their free writes now. Is it the writing or the reading? Maybe a bit of both.
That’s brilliant. I’m doing that. I have my stuffed dog Heisenberg who will be doing some traveling now heh heh.
Just remember to write your name on it somewhere! Patito’s first time out was a failed mission when he got left in another classroom, but luckily the teacher knew who to email.
What a great idea! I might have to snatch one of my daughter’s less played with animals for something similar…or get one that is specific to French class…perhaps a stuffed escargot…
Sorry meant to ask, what is “write with me”?
It’s just me writing up on the powerpoint that’s displayed. Students tell the story back to me and I type it up correctly for them to see. Then we R&D.
I’ve had trouble writing up on the screen in powerpoint, since I always have to switch the screen into editing mode, which is much smaller, in order to write…is there some trick I’m missing to be able to write on a slide while in presentation mode?
I just use the regular editing view. You can shrink down the left column where all the slides are shown if you want. It’s big enough on screen for sure, though not as polished-looking as the final slideshow view would be. You can then do “Slideshow” and do another rep after everything is complete. I like doing this by putting a picture on each slide & leaving enough room to type up some sentences we create in class. Then it ties auditory input immediately to reading input.
No tricks. I just type it up in editing mode, talking through it. Even if a student has trouble seeing it, they can hear me ask if a yo-verb needs an -o or an -a ending, and if the adjective should go before or after the noun. Then, like Diane said, I go to presentation mode and they get even more reps.
This thread just shows that we cannot always predict what is interesting to a teenager, but when we hit it, they remember it. We do know some basic things – they like discussions about smoking, fighting and kissing. But, in the end, we can’t tell what will “stick”. That is why having only 45 minutes a day is just not enough.
Another unconnected thought to tag onto what y’all said above is how if the word is SAID in a certain emotional way or if it is READ in a certain context, I have noticed it sticks better and you see it show up on free writes. But in the end we can’t control anything. And I think that is the point.
Emotion has a big part to do with retention of vocabulary.
Multiple contexts is important.
I’m amused by how every kid can ask: “Can I go to the bathroom?” But then I’ll get asked at some point how to say “I can.” Getting vocabulary in a memorized phrase doesn’t cut it.
We can learn a lot about how to read with our students from the elementary teachers. I recently started reading a class novel with my students and I busted out my old Four Blocks Literacy Model book (1999), which is a multilevel framework for elementary-age children. I will share and maybe this can help us better understand ways to read in a FL class.
2 of the 4 blocks are SSR and Guided Reading.
I consider the primary goal of SSR to be to build intrinsic motivation. SSR consists of 3 basic steps:
1. teacher read-aloud,
2. independent reading & conferencing,
3. sharing aka reader’s chair/book talk).
“Reading aloud is “the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading.” 1985 report “Becoming a Nation of Readers”
Guided Reading has as its primary goal to teach comprehension skills. Books read together for Guided Reading are recommended to be at and below grade-level. There is a before (e.g. establish meaning, preview pictures and discuss, ask for predictions, etc.), during (e.g. shared reading, partner reading, book clubs, etc.), and after reading activity (e.g. RT, graphic organizers, beach ball*, etc.). The books are re-read several times with a different purpose and a different format.
*A large beach ball has questions about the story elements, favorite part, etc. written on its stripes (like the 5-finger/glove retell). Students form a circle and toss the ball around, each time they catch the ball, they answer a new question or add info to an already answered question.
One thing I realize: my goal for reading a novel with the class has to be to enjoy the reading. I found myself, after reading the chapter, asking a ton of recall questions like in the reading of a class story (ROA). I need to do the compact R&D: choose one paragraph and go deep (TPR/PQA/RT). Maybe I model the answers to the beach ball questions (input) and then add the beach ball activity (output).
Unrelated, but I LOVE this quote, from the MovieTalk website glesismore.com:
“Listening comprehension is a prerequisite for speaking. Language students cannot speak above their own comprehension level. (If they could, then they should be able to say things that they wouldn’t understand if someone else said them!)”
Along the lines of helping kids read with comprehension, I was watching 2005 NTRPS DVDs for a while yesterday. Susie Gross mentioned these people: http://www.lindamoodbell.com/programs/visualizing-verbalizing.html
The idea is that people who don’t read well are not visualizing the meaning as they read. Good readers do. People can be taught to do that better. I think we a lot of that already with photos, actors, story artists, etc. but I’m going to look into the website for more ideas. Bonus: my school’s LD department uses these methods too.
The one thing I have found that ALWAYS works in CI– apart from slow and clarify with English– is a visual anchor of some kind. I get more retention, more interest, more focus, less side-talk etc with photo, actor, object etc.
With my kinda-grumpy 2s, my next idea for stories is, I am gonna use 3 sequential pictures (instead of an actor) to ask my next story, and I am gonna have my actor(s) just sit in their regular spots and do voices. My #1 guy is smszingly good but he’s a distractor.
…getting vocabulary in a memorized phrase doesn’t cut it….
It’s like those babies on TV that they manipulate into looking like they are talking. Do we want that?
Another point about memorized phrases is that the chances that a traditionally trained student will be able to:
1) recognize the prompt to call up the correct memorized phrase from her memorized phrase bank when travelling in the country and
2) keep the memorized phrase on long term memory
are very slim indeed.