Title - Martha Speaks Author: Meddaugh, Susan Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Print Synopsis Authors Purpose Genre When Helen Finney feeds alphabet soup to her dog, Martha, it goes straight up to her brain, and Martha begins to speak! But having a talking dog isn't always as much fun as it seems. Entertain Fantasy RDQ (Reading Difficulty Quotient) Accelerated Reader Lexile Find at 301 2.2 540 Amazon RDQ based on a maximum of 3000 words Levels are suggested levels based on RDQ, not official levels Sentences Total Words Different Words Max Word/Sent 25 Total # of Words 522 # of Different Words 252 Ave Word/.Sent 7 Hi Freq occurs 296 56.7% # of Hi freq words 99 39.3% % of Long Sentences 1.4 Low Freq occurs 10 1.9% # of Low freq words 7 2.8% Subjective Criteria Illustrations: Some support Speech Bubbles Dialog: Multiple speakers Dialog: Broken dialogue Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues Language: Few descriptive words Sentences: Simple phrases Text structure: Blend of written/oral Concept: Fanciful Features Simple Plot Topics Talking Dogs Alphabet Words *Animals *Family & Friends Pets Low Frequency Words burglar doubted embarrassing ferocious occasionally opinions restaurant