Text Leveling System

Clifford's Family

RDQ:	195	Max Word/Sent	19	Total Words	347		Diff Words	179
Lex	410	Ave Word/.Sent	8	Hi Freq occurs	206	59.4%	Hi freq	77	43%
AR	1.9	Long Sentences	0	Low Freq occurs	1	0.3%	Low freq	1	0.6%

I'm Emily Elizabeth 
and this is my dog.  His name is Clifford.  We live in a small town now but we were both born in the city.  One day we went back to visit our old home in the city.  Clifford hadn't seen his mother since he was a tiny puppy.  She hardly knew him.  She still treated him like a puppy.  She checked his teeth.  And she looked at his ears to see if he had been washing them.  The man told us where Clifford's brother and sisters lived.  We went to find them.  Clifford's sister Claudia lived nearby.  She was taking her owner for a walk.  We went to the park with them.  A taxi was blocking the crosswalk.  Clifford took care of that.  Next we found his brother Nero.  Nero was a rescue dog at a fire station.  While we were there the alarm rang.  We followed the fire truck.  Nero rushed into the building.  Clifford helped him.  Nero was very brave.  Then we set off to the country.  Clifford's other sister Bonnie was a farm dog.  One of Bonnie's jobs was to herd the sheep into their pen.  Clifford wanted to do some farm work too.  He started to drive the cows toward the barn.  One of the cows was a bull and bulls don't like the color red.  Clifford wasn't scared-he was smart.  He didn't want to hurt the bull so he jumped out of the way.  When Clifford jumps he really jumps!  We had one more place to visit.  It was Clifford's father's home in a town nearby.  The house was small and there were a lot of kids playing in the yard.  Clifford's father didn't have a collar or a dog dish or a dog house.  But he seemed very happy.  I guess it was the kids.  He sure loved kids.  He was a lot like Clifford just a little smaller.  Clifford wished his family could come a live with us.  But they all had people who needed them... ...just as I need Clifford the best dog of all.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Some support

Vocabulary: Few decoding/definition issues

Language: Simple language

Sentences: Simple phrases

Text structure: Oral/Natural

Features

Topic

Cities

Dogs

*Animals

Family

Farms

Barns

Low Frequency Words

herd