Title - Never Mail an Elephant Author: Thaler, Mike Publisher: Troll Associates Print Synopsis Authors Purpose Genre It seemed like a good idea at the time, but find out what happens when our young hero tries to mail an elephant to his cousin for her birthday. Entertain Concept RDQ (Reading Difficulty Quotient) Accelerated Reader Lexile Find at 240 2.0 500 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 23 Total # of Words 273 # of Different Words 129 Ave Word/.Sent 10 Hi Freq occurs 151 55.3% # of Hi freq words 39 30.2% % of Long Sentences 3.8 Low Freq occurs 10 3.7% # of Low freq words 8 6.2% Subjective Criteria Illustrations: Some support Vocabulary: Few decoding/definition issues Language: Many descriptive words Sentences: Multiple phrases Text structure: Oral/Natural Concept: Fanciful Features Simple problem/solution First Person Topics Birthdays Elephants Mail Low Frequency Words emptied hardware postmaster shoved stationery wrapping wrested yanked