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本帖最后由 snazkf 于 2013-10-5 11:04 编辑
Following are some questions commonly asked about t
he ATOS Readability Formula for Books.
W h y d i d y o u c h a n g e r e a d a b i l i t y f o r m u l a s ?
We wanted to provide educators with an easier-to-us
e and more accurate tool for guiding students to
appropriate books. We devoted two years of research
to creating the ATOS readability formula. ATOS is
more accurate than other formulas because:
•
It’s based on actual student book reading (we analy
zed the reading of almost 1,000,000 books by
more than 30,000 students).
•
It takes book length into account.
•
It employs the three statistics that researchers ha
ve found to be most predictive of reading difficult
y:
the number of words per sentence, the number of cha
racters per word, and the average grade level
of the words in the book
.
W h a t d o e s a n A T O S b o o k l e v e l n u m b e r r e f l e c t ?
An ATOS level on a book indicates how difficult the
text is to read. Thus it helps you match books to
a
student’s reading level. But ATOS measures only the
text. It does not—nor does any other readability
formula—take into account literary merit, sophistic
ation of ideas, developmental appropriateness, or
maturity of theme or language. This is why it’s imp
ortant to know and use three measurements: Readabil
ity
or Book Level (the difficulty of a book’s text), Re
ading Level (a student’s tested level), and Interes
t Level
(the content level of a book).
J u s t h o w a c c u r a t e i s A T O S ?
ATOS correlates well with other standard readabilit
y formulas and does a better job than other formula
s with
problematic types of books, such as high-low, emerg
ent-reader, and nonfiction books. But it’s importan
t to
remember that all readability formulas produce only
an estimate of a book’s readability based on selec
ted
variables in the text. Different formulas applied t
o the same book will generally give estimates that
differ by
a grade level or so. Also keep in mind, as stated a
bove, that readability formulas do not measure the
maturity
level of the content. That’s why we also indicate e
ach book’s Interest Level to help you guide student
s to
appropriate content. In addition, an educator’s kno
wledge of books is always an important factor when
matching books to students.
W h a t d o e s I n t e r e s t L e v e l m e a n ?
The ATOS Book Level and the Interest Level represen
t the two dimensions of reading: text and content.
ATOS levels measure readability, or textual difficu
lty. Interest Levels refer to the sophistication of
a book’s
content, ideas, and theme, and are based on publish
er recommendations. A simple rule: use the ATOS lev
el
to determine whether a student can read the book an
d Interest Level to help determine whether a studen
t
should read it. You can see the Interest Levels for
books that have an Accelerated Reader (AR) quiz by
looking through the title listings in the software,
searching for the quiz on our Web site, or searchi
ng in AR
BookGuide or AR BookFinder. |
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