Text Leveling System

Stevie

RDQ:	431	Max Word/Sent	27	Total Words	938		Diff Words	318
Lex	620	Ave Word/.Sent	9	Hi Freq occurs	668	71.2%	Hi freq	140	44%
AR	2.5	Long Sentences	6.9	Low Freq occurs	41	4.4%	Low freq	27	8.5%

One day my mama told me 
"You know you're gonna have a little friend come stay with you." And I said "Who is it?" And she said "You know my friend Mrs. Mack? Well she has to work all week and I'm gonna keep her little boy." I asked "For how long?" She said "He'll stay all week and his mother will come pick him up on Saturdays." The next day the doorbell rang. It was a lady and a kid. He was smaller than me. I ran to my mother. "Is that them?" They went in the kitchen but I stayed out in the hall to listen. The little boy's name was Steven but his mother kept calling him Stevie. My name is Robert but my momma don't call me Robertie. And so Steve moved in with his old crybaby self. He always had to have his way. And he was greedy too. Everything he sees he wants. "Could I have somma that? Gimme this." Man! Since he was littler than me while I went to school he used to stay home and play with my toys. I wished his mother would bring somma his toys over her to break up. I used to get so mad at my mother when I came home after school. "Momma can't you watch him and tell him to leave my stuff alone? Then he used to like to get up on my bed and look out the window and leave his dirty footprints all over my bed. And my momma never said nothin' to him. And on Saturdays when his mother came to pick him up he always tries to act cute just cause his mother is there. He picked up my airplane and I told him not to bother it. He thought I wouldn't say nothin' to him in front of his mother. I could never go anywhere without my mother sayin' "Take Stevie with you now." "But why I gotta take him everywhere I go?" I'd say. "Now if you were stayin' with someone you wouldn't want them to treat you mean" my mother told me. "Why don't you and Stevie try to play nice?" Yeah but I always been nice to him with his old spoiled self. He's always gotta have his way anyway. I had to take him out to play with me and my friends. "Is that you brother Bobby?" they'd ask me. "No." "Is that you cousin?" "No! He's just my friend and he's stayin' at my house and my mother made me bring him." "Ha ha. You gotta baby-sit! Bobby the baby-sitter!" "Aw be quiet. Come on Steve. See! Why you gott make all my friends laugh for?" "Ha ha. Bobby the baby-sitter" my friends said. "Hey come on y'all let's go play in the park. You comin'  Bobby?" one of my friends said. "Naw my momma said he can't go in the park cause the last time he went he fell and hurt his knee with his old stupid self." And then they left. "You see? You see! I can't even play with my friends. Man! Come on." "I'm sorry Robert. You don't like me Robert? I'm sorry" Stevie said. "Aw be quiet. That's okay" I told him. One time when my daddy was havin' company I was just sittin' behind the couch just listenin' to them talk and make jokes and drink beer. And I wasn't makin' no noise. They didn't even know I was there! Then her comes Stevie with his old loud self. Then when my father heard him he yelled at me and told me to go upstairs. Just cause of Stevie. Sometimes people get on you nerves and they don't mean it or nothin' but they just bother you. Why I gotta put up with him? My momma only had one kid. I used to have a lot of fun before old stupid came to live with us. One Saturday Steve's mother and father came to my house to pick him up like always. But they said that they were gonna move away and that Stevie wasn't gonna come back anymore. So then he left. The next mornin' I got up to watch cartoons and I fixed two bowls of corn flakes. Then I just remembered that Stevie wasn't here. Sometimes we had a lot of fun runnin' in and out of the house. Well I guess my bed will stay clean from now on. But that wasn't so bad. He couldn't help it cause he was stupid. I remember the time I ate the last piece of cake in the breadbox and blamed it on him. We used to play Cowboys and Indians on the stoop. I remember when I was doin' my homework I used to try to teach him what I learned. He could write his name pretty good for his age. I remember the time we played boogie man and we hid under the covers with Daddy's flashlight. And the time we was playin' in the park under the bushes and we found these two dead rats and one was brown and one was black. And him and me and my friends used to cook mickies or marshmallows in the park. We used to have some good times together. I think he liked my momma better than his own cause he used to call his mother "Mother" and he called my momma "Mommy." Aw no! I let my corn flakes get soggy thinkin' about him. He was a nice little guy. He was kinda like a little brother. Little Stevie.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Some support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues

Language: Few descriptive words

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Blend of written/oral

Inferences: Some implications

Concepts: Concrete/Simple Social

Features

Character traits

Character development

Simple Plot

Topic

Mothers

Remembering

Babysitters

Family

*Feelings, Behaviors

Relationships

Low Frequency Words

boogie	comin	doin	gimme	gonna
gotta	havin	kinda	listenin	littler
makin	marshmallows	mickies	mornin	naw
nothin	playin	robertie	runnin	sayin
sittin	somma	stayin	stevie	stoop
thinkin	y'all