• @GlendatheGayWitch@lib.lgbtEnglish
    21•9 months ago

    I wonder that the standard used for 6th-grade reading level is. I know that the 6th grade reading level at the beginning of the century is higher than the 6th grade reading level now.

    I remember being extremely disappointed when I was in 6th grade and they had arbitrarily moved a lot of books up a reading level. There were a few in particular that I was looking forward to reading while in 5th grade that were at a 6th grade level. Then in 6th grade, I grabbed one of those books to check out but was told that I could t read it because it was now considered 7th grade and that I had to choose from the 6th grade level (which was largely the previous year’s 5th grade level).

    • @Someonelol@lemmy.ml
      22•9 months ago

      This is infuriating. No one should be denied borrowing a book because they’re not at their “grade level”. That’s the kind of shit that contributes to people losing interest in reading from a young age.

    • @vic_rattlehead@lemmy.world
      18•9 months ago

      I didn’t have a single teacher or librarian who would discourage a kid from reading a book, unless a 6th grader tried checking out a clearly adult intended book like a harlequin novel or something.

      • @GlendatheGayWitch@lib.lgbtEnglish
        6•9 months ago

        I’m glad you had teachers like that. Not sure why mine were so dead-set on only reading in your grade level. Limiting lower level makes more sense, to encourage students to push themselves more. 6th grade was the last grade in the school, so the only people allowed to read the 7th grade level books were in the 6th grade Honors English class. It’s not like the library would run out of books if all 6th graders were allowed to pick out of that section of the library

        • @BreadstickNinja@lemmy.worldEnglish
          9•9 months ago

          I hope you got yourself a library card. The idea of limiting kids who are reading above the average level is insane to me. Why restrict everyone to the mean?

      • TheHarpyEagle
        1•9 months ago

        Yeah that seems so unfortunate. I loved my elementary school librarian; she would flip to a random page and make sure you could read and understand it. As long as you could do that, you could check it out.

      • @GlendatheGayWitch@lib.lgbtEnglish
        17•9 months ago

        It wasn’t age locked per se. If you were in Honors English, they assumed you were reading at a higher level and could check out books one grade level higher than you and if you were in on-level English you were not allowed to read above “grade level”.

        I can understand keeping a 6th grader from checking out a bunch of 1st grade level books, but discouraging kids from pushing themselves was weird