Wikibooks talk:Reading Levels

Levels
I'd like to suggest that we change the level designations for this guideline to something more broad. Assigning age groups isn't always the best approach. If we remove the grade-based levels to some other wording like beginner or intermediate I think more books can use this (not everything here is explicitly academic. I would consider using this for the Muggles' Guide if we could get larger groups in as well, such as "children to adults". -within focus 19:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I like that proposal. I guess i'm so wrapped up in my own academics that I forget that it isn't the only way to break down materials. There are probably 4 major groups that I would like to differentiate between:
 * Children who can't read, or are just learning to read. These are things like picture books or story books. "Pre-Reader" is still a non-academic designation, but i would be open to other suggestions
 * People who read at a basic level ("Beginner"?) These books would be light on vocabulary, simple sentence structures, etc. I don't want to call this group "Novice", as a personal preference.
 * People who are reading at a "normal" adult reading level ("Intermediate"?). These books don't have to go out of their way to be simplified, but should make efforts to be easily accessible.
 * People who are professionals or are highly educated in one domain. These people can sift through jargon and acronyms, and can dig through very dense, dry, academic work ("advanced", or "professional"?)
 * It would be fairly easy to change these categorizations, once we decide what precisely to change them to. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:13, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm supportive of Pre-Reader -> Beginner -> Intermediate -> Advanced -> Professional myself. I feel that Advanced and Professional should be separate. For instance, when I was a college student I was Advanced in some engineering topics but still learning them. My instructors were Professional. Also, let's throw in "All Ages". -within focus 18:19, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * That's fair. We keep the same number of categories, so conversion is as simple as category renaming. I'll get started on it as soon as I have time (probably next week). --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 18:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

✅ --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 18:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Levels are too Limiting
Noticing "A Little C Primer" was put in the Beginner level, it seems to me painfully obvious that the current system may benefit from some reworking.

As far as "reading levels" are concerned, the currently used levels are more than sensible, for Reading Levels. The problem seems to be that writers confuse them with content difficulty level.

A C Primer is "beginner" C/S reading, but i hardly can immagine your average 8-year old can digest that.

At the moment, only the two most "high level" categories make any sense for any sort of higher academic matierial (any programming, any science etc), not allowing for different levels of comlexity within the subject.

Maybe there could be a separate difficulty specifier for the subject's difficulty...

A C Primer should be a Beginner Text for an Advanced Reading-capable person.

--- m


 * Yes, but these are reading levels -- we also have Template:Prerequisite to better describe the audience. If you have other descriptors to suggest, we can consider them. Perhaps age is one such descriptor.
 * But your analysis is correct - there are books which are easy to read but difficult to understand (as in your example of a C primer). That's not a fault with this system. It's not a fault at all. Those books exist, and should be described as such.
 * Though I suggested age as another descriptor, I'd be reluctant to actually implement that because age is notoriously difficult to work with in this area. In young children there is too much variability, and among adults there is not enough to make it useful. &mdash; Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 06:29, 23 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I've made some changes to try to clarify what this page is about so this sort of confusion is hopefully reduced. I've focused on mentioning different reading skills that are mastered, starting with not having learned to read at all yet, and from there for each skill level mentioning things like having mastered the ability to work out the meaning of most unfamiliar words just by the content of their usage. I think that helps clarify the intent of this page and makes clear that this page is not about a person's ability to understand a subject based on what they have learned previously about the subject. --dark lama  16:40, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Reading level for non-native speakers
Should a new level be created, or should it be an addition to beginner? Kayau ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 11:13, 4 June 2010 (UTC)


 * A non-native speaker is much like native speaker in that there skill levels can vary.
 * A non-native speaker that knows no words yet, or needs assistance to understand words might be called a pre-reader.
 * A non-native speaker that knows some words and language structure, and only needs assistance some of the time might be called a beginner.
 * A non-native speaker that has been able to master an ability to figure out what unfamiliar words mean from their context and usage might be called Intermediate.
 * A non-native speaker that knows some specialized words, often only used in a specific field, might be considered Advance.
 * A non-native speaker that knows most specialized words in a specific field, might be considered to have a professional understanding of the language.
 * Do you see what I mean? --dark lama  14:17, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I see... perhaps a word or two could be added about non-native speakers to every level. Kayau ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 09:49, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Well the page doesn't really attempt to differentiate between native and non-native speakers. I'm unsure there is a clear way to differentiate them in any case or a need to. Whether someone considers themselves a native or a non-native speaker is a personal choice/opinion. What I said about non-native speakers is also true of native speakers, and the page already mentions these things without reference to whether a person is native or non-native. The reading levels aren't even based on some age group, just on lack of or skills learned which is age neutral and native/non-native neutral. --dark lama  12:13, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

New reading level for reference books
I propose that we create a new "Introductory" category for beginner reference books that are written with non-technical vocabulary but require an adult's level of comprehension. Books in the category would be introductions to advanced/professional topics, for example the books A Little C Primer and Java Programming, for which readers would not be expected to have prior knowledge (which makes it a misnomer to categorize the books as Intermediate). The two books are currently categorized as Beginner, but those books clearly don't meet the criteria of being intended for young children and reliant on pictures. The Introductory category would only apply to nonfiction reference works, and it would categorize books that are written at an Intermediate level but require a basic adult comprehension level. I think such a category would solve the unique problem involving the miscategorization of nonfiction works for beginners in a particular subject. This would solve the problem discussed in a previous section. --Apollo1758 (discuss • contribs) 00:28, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * This page describes level of fluency in reading a language, such as a fluency in reading the English language. Some people seem to confuse language fluency with topic difficulty. covers any prior knowledge a person should have in a topic if any. Whether a person has any prior knowledge on a specific topic and how difficult a topic may be to learn is beyond the scope of this page. --dark  lama  14:17, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Prereaders
It would be good to have a category meaning: picture dictionary/word book for beginning readers.

This category is for native-language learners possessing an oral vocabulary of words known by pronunciation and meaning but who are just beginning to learn to read.

For these learners, word books/picture dictionaries give an initial exposure to the spellings of orally known words. The overall gestalt, and often, first and last letters, of the written words are learned in association with known pronunciation and meaning.

This category of books is distinct because it enables learners to self-teach.

It is especially important for English because of the variability of English spelling. The pictures in such books function as pronunciation guides as well as definitions for the spelled words.

We could say that these books are for pre-readers because regular pronunciation guides, such as Webster's, need basic literacy to be used.

Then, the current category for books with higher reading-level than content-level could have a separate cagegory that could span multiple levels.

I have been to other sites with children's books that use the category "prereaders" for very hard books and felt frustrated by that. This section of Wikibooks clarified that frustration for me. So that's why I've made this suggestion.

Sbioggio (discuss • contribs) 03:29, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * In what way does our pre-reader category, as described here, mismatch what you want? --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 11:04, 4 April 2015 (UTC)