Leveling Expository Texts for Primary-Grade Classrooms: An Example in Life Science

The final products of this project are 1) a list of 52 expository books in the area of plants in life science and 2) a process of selecting and leveling books which may be applied to other subjects for educators wishing to create a curriculum that introduces expository reading to children of primary grades. Using Fountas & Pinnell (1996 and 1999), I selected and categorized the books into 15 readability levels pertinent to the first, second, and third grades of elementary school (see Table 6 “Book Levels with Approximate Grade Level Correspondence”) with the purpose of encouraging teachers to use the resulting list in their classrooms as a tool and a starting point to teach their students to read, understand, and appreciate the expository genre of literature.This project is intended to encourage teachers to balance the presentation of literature genres (i.e., narrative and exposition) early on in order to prepare each student to comfortably and successfully read a variety of material which they will encounter in their classes throughout the years. Such a balance is currently rare to find inside primary-grade classrooms across the United States; furthermore, it is only through such exposure that young students, both native and more especially non-native speakers of English, can avoid “the fourth-grade slump” and become successful readers for the remainder of their school experience.

Thesis Author: Peltier, Ilaria N.

Year Completed: 2003

Committee Members: Cynthia L. Hallen, Glen W. Probst

Thesis Chair: Dee I. Gardner

Thesis Award: Outstanding TESOL Project