Wikibooks talk:Reading Levels

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[edit] 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". -withinfocus 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:

1. 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
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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". -withinfocus 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)

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

[edit] 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.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^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. --darklama 16:40, 30 November 2008 (UTC)