Customer Reviews

The Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Book List, K-8+: 2010-2012 Edition, Print Version

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I bought this book thinking that it would be very "up to date" and also that it would be easier to use than the on-line sources that give Fountas and Pinnell ratings.

I have several complaints about the book--mainly that it doesn't seem to cover anywhere near as many "newer" books that I had hoped it would take care of.

I also have a hard time with the way it is laid out in that not only are the books arranged by title rather than by author causing you to spend a lot of time going back and forth, but also that many times the author is not listed, only the publishing company. To me, it should not have been that difficult to list both the author and publishing company for each of the books.

All in all, I am very disappointed and for the price, I would say just stick with the "free" on-line sources that are out there.

Over the summer I set up a Leveled Library for the elementary classes at my school. I would not have been able to do it without this book. I was able to find 98% of all the books in our leveled book collection. I am talking about the books that you buy in six packs that are strictly for guided reading/leveled books. Some of the books were also books from our regular library collection and I was able to find those in this book as well. But for most of those books - I can find information free online. It was very difficult for me to find any information on those thin paperback leveled book sets (Rigby, Houghton Mifflin, McGraw Hill) anywhere online. There aren't MARC records available for most of them either (OCLC was the only place where I found a few.) I was so thankful that this book had the basic info that I needed. As a previous reviewer mentioned - Some of the books don't have authors listed but I found that those books did not have authors listed in the books themselves- like the Science Series books for example where only the publisher is listed and no author. I also like that the general genre was listed with the book so I could quickly figure out which Dewey Number to assign to the book without having to dig too deep. I highly recommend this for a teacher or librarian interested in assigning levels to books in your classroom or or for adding titles to your library collection.

While this is certainly a comprehensive resource, I would have preferred the titles be set up by level. When teachers/parents ask,

"What are" just right" reading books for my students/kids, it is no longer easy to flip to the designated level to search for books that would be of interest. The alphabetical listing of titles in this new edition defeats one of the major uses of a resource such as this.

I purchased this book for the public library in which I work. We frequently are asked by parents for books on little Susie's reading level, which is a difficult question to answer, since few of us have a reading specialist or teaching background. I purchased this book since it's the only way short of an online subscription to have access to Fountas & Pinnell's proprietary leveling system (which is used by many of our local schools). I was disappointed to find that the authors have chosen what seems to me the least helpful way to organize the book -- books are listed by title. Listing by reading level (or at least a reading level index) would have allowed access in the way that 95% of the inquiries are framed ("Susie's teacher says she needs to read level H books. Where are those?"). Listing by author, while not as ideal as level, would at least have allowed access in the same way that the library's collection is organized.

In short, having this book in my library is better than having nothing at all, but very few of our patrons will have the time or patience to use it in the format used.

I found very few of the books in my classroom library in this text. I had more luck on free web-based leveling sites. Save your money and go on line.

This is the latest "bible" for leveling books. Unlike the last edition, books can only be looked up by title, not level. I would suggest spending the money on an online subscription to the Fountas and Pinnell leveling system. I decided to purchase this book because one day the price dropped to around $35. I would NOT pay full price for it.

It could be very helpful in leveling your classroom library. Many of the older books should be included. However, many of the newer ones are not. Good luck deciding to purchase this book, purchase the online subscription, or use other internet resources. Here is the website for leveling books: [...]

The book is supposed to be a good reference to level books. I cannot find certain book titles in this thick reference book. I was surprised.

That was a fast disappointment. I had thought there would be some explanation of the process of leveling. The online version has all the data, and that would be somehow searchable, whereas the printed version is not. Also, the data is inconsistent, with word counts truncated at 250 for some titles, and detailed into the thousands for others. If I did have a large library organized by title, I could very well see using this as a resource to speed through the leveling process. Unfortunately, I wanted to learn more about the leveling, and found this to be entirely unsuitable.

This is a very cost effective solution for a public library. Our local schools use this leveling program and parents come in wanting to know which of our books are are specific reading levels. To subscribe to the companies website would not be a good solution for us. Highlighting the titles we have in this book is our best solution.

The Leveled Book List helped me level the majority of book in my classroom. Kids will now have a larger resource of books to pull from that are on their levels. I recommend this book to teachers.