Pointing the Way

Which book requires more brain power to read all the way through: The classic Greek play “Antigone” or the modern thriller “Clear and Present Danger”?

According to one computer analysis now in use by teachers across the country, it’s no contest. The work of spymaster novelist Tom Clancy packs 10 times the literacy wallop of the prose of Sophocles.

The Scholastic Reading Counts! program, aimed at guiding educators on what outside reading to assign to their students, rates Clancy’s tome at 51 points, compared with only 5 for Sophocles.

The program is one of a handful that have been growing in popularity in recent years. Using computer analysis of word frequency and sentence lengths, they purport to rate the reading challenges posed by thousands of books by assigning each work a relative value.

Many teachers embrace this approach as a useful tool to prioritize a dizzying array of classics and new titles, saying that the lists motivate students by tailoring books to individual needs.

The teachers also say that such programs hold students accountable by requiring them to take computer-controlled quizzes to earn points that count toward grades.

Programs range in price from $400 to $3,000 for computer disks that contain rankings of as many as 27,000 books, with quizzes for each. They cover material from kindergarten through 12th grade.

The tailored reading lists are particularly useful in Los Angeles Unified and other districts where tens of thousands of students read far below their grade levels, teachers say. They allow educators to keep track of the difficulty of reading material and to monitor students’ progress, while giving students the freedom to choose from a large menu of titles, they say.

“We view it as a motivation tool,” said Valine Zeigler, head of the English department for seventh and eighth grades at Jefferson New Middle School in South Los Angeles.

The school uses a popular computer program called Accelerated Reader to track independent reading among students in its English classes.

Students take short tests on the computer to determine their reading levels. Then the system matches them with a range of books suited to their abilities.

Students at Jefferson are required to accumulate 10 points every four weeks--the equivalent of reading “Black Beauty” once or “The Dare” by R.L. Stine twice. The independent reading accounts for 25% of each student’s English grade.

“They are reading books they understand,” Zeigler said of her students. “It’s setting them up for success.”

She and others say the programs have increased the sheer number of books students are reading outside of class.

But some educators aren’t sold. They say that crunching words and sentences through computers ultimately ignores the value of the contents. And they note that the computer can yield strikingly different point totals that don’t necessarily reflect the complexity of the books.

For example, an English translation of “Antigone”--which was first performed in Greek 24 centuries ago, before 400 BC--is assigned an eighth-grade level by the scholastic index. “Clear and Present Danger”--which debuted 11 years ago, in 1989--is pegged at the sixth-grade level.

But because the Clancy novel is 544 pages, compared with 64 pages for the play, it earns 10 times as many points.

“Computers aren’t really very smart in the sense of judging quality,” said Doug Carnine, an education professor at the University of Oregon and director of the National Center to Improve the Tools of Educators. “You could have a terrible long book and it would get a lot of points.”

Some parents, meanwhile, complain that the recommended reading lists deter students from reading the classics by encouraging them to choose lighter fare.

“This is perpetuating the easy way out,” said Lisa Sklov, who called her son’s Simi Valley school to complain when she saw the scholastic reading list her son brought home from school.

Fourteen-year-old Andrew agreed with his mother. The ninth-grader at Santa Susana High School said that he is required to read 50 points worth of books per quarter on his own--and that he looks for the quickest way to finish the assignment.

“I choose the easy ones that give me a good amount of points,” he said. “ ‘The Three Musketeers’ is a pretty easy book and it gives me a lot of points [41].”

Andrew tried to beat the system recently by taking the quiz before he finished the book. He failed.

“If you pass the test, you don’t have to finish the book,” he said.

John Kohlmeier, an English teacher at Andrew’s school, admits that some students try to find the easiest books with the highest rankings. But in the end, he said, it’s important that they read at least something.

An enthusiastic supporter of the program, Kohlmeier has been using it for more than a decade and now trains other teachers in its use. In his class, 30% of a student’s overall grade depends on outside reading and it takes 45 points to get an A on that portion.

“I’ve got parents telling me all the time that their kids have their noses in a book rather than watching television,” Kohlmeier said. “It’s the best program I’ve seen. It gets kids reading.”

Executives from Scholastic and other companies say that it’s up to teachers to make sure students read books geared to their reading levels. They note that the point system is an optional feature of their programs.

They also say their programs are not intended to assess the worth of books, but to provide a tool to help teachers get their students excited about reading.

“We’re not trying to sit in judgment that says ‘Macbeth’ is a better book than [something by] Tom Clancy,” said Harry Barfoot, vice president and general manager of Scholastic Reading Counts!

“It’s up to the school to provide the management structure around this so that it maximizes the effect for Jimmy, Johnny and all the rest. We’re providing the tool to the school to manage that process.”

The idea of tailoring books to individual reading levels is gaining ground in California.

Lists similar to those used at Santa Susana High and Jefferson New Middle School will soon be available to students and their parents statewide.

Under a new state law, parents who know their children’s Stanford 9 standardized exam results will be able to click onto an Internet site for a list of appropriate reading titles.

A bill in the Legislature also would require that lists of recommended books be included when individual students’ test scores are sent home in the mail.

The lists would name 30 to 100 books that are on the state’s voluminous list of approved reading material, officials said.

“This will provide parents and teachers a necessary tool to encourage children to practice and improve their reading skills,” said state Sen. Chuck Poochigian (R-Fresno), who wrote the pending legislation. “Having the list with the scores provides a context for making use of the test results. Parents can begin immediately working with their children over the summer to improve their children’s reading ability.”