Guided Reading Levels

Each Heinemann-Raintree Library title is labeled with a letter from 'A' to 'Z+' to indicate the guided reading level.  The books are grouped by difficulty, so books at a particular level are similar to one another in terms of the challenges and supports to the reader.  As you go up the alphabet, the level of the text becomes harder.  The progression is not a precise sequence that students move through as they become more proficient readers; it is a collection of books arranged by difficulty from which you can choose texts that are suitable for groups or individuals.

The level designation is only an approximation.  Within each level there will be some books that are easier and some that are harder.  Remember, the background knowledge that students have from experiences at school, at home and in the community—along with their reading experience—varies widely in your classroom.  Having a collection of leveled books along a continuum allows you to select titles that are “just right” for each student.

The system employed by Heinemann-Raintree Classroom of assigning a level to a particular title uses the characteristics identified by Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell.  Research indicates that there is a complex range of factors that constitute the difficulty of the text.  The cluster of characteristics at each level helps you evaluate the texts and their match to the reader.  No matter how interested students are in a topic, the text must be accessible to them.  Heinemann-Raintree Classroom is proud to offer a wide selection of books at many levels that support the standards and are engaging to your students.

In addition to all 2,076 English texts being leveled, Heinemann-Raintree Classroom publishes 298 titles in Spanish which are also leveled.