Text Leveling System

Watch out for Dinosaurs

RDQ:	816	Max Word/Sent	33	Total Words	1734		Diff Words	556
Lex	700	Ave Word/.Sent	8	Hi Freq occurs	1156	66.7%	Hi freq	250	45%
AR	3.3	Long Sentences	9.6	Low Freq occurs	72	4.2%	Low freq	46	8.3%

Nelson Slappey kept his eyes on the magazine
story he was reading as he reached for his
orange juice and opened his mouth to take a
drink.
"Slap! Watch what you're doing!" his mother
said.
"Huh?" Slap put down his magazine and
looked at the sugar bowl he was holding in his
right hand. "Oh" he said. "I thought it was my
orange juice."
Slap's big brother Chris who was hunched
over his cereal bowl grinned and made a 
snickering snorting noise into his Krunchy
Krackles.]]
"You can't read and eat at the same time" 
Slap's father said. "Whatever you're reading can 
wait until after breakfast."
"But I'm reading about dinosaurs" Slap said. 
"And it's important stuff."
Chris grabbed the sports section of the 
morning newspaper and threw it at Slap. "If you want 
to read something important read this" he said.
"Oh grasshopper guts!" Slap mumbled as the 
newspaper hit the side of his head. He threw it 
on the floor. All Chris thought about was sports. 
All he wanted to do was play football and 
basketball and baseball. Yuck.
And soccer. Another yuck.
Chris wasn't the least bit interested in 
science but Slap was. Science was Slap's favorite 
subject in school. Last year he had been the 
only one in his class who had made a volcano 
that really smoked.
Ever since his class took a field trip to the 
Houston science museum and Slap saw the 
giant skeleton of a real Diplodocus he 
especially wanted to read about dinosaurs. No 
matter what Chris said dinosaurs were important.]] 
Slap held up his magazine so everyone in his 
family could see it.
On the right side of the open pages was a
drawing of a bird's skeleton on top of a drawing 
of the skeleton of a tyrannus dinosaur.
"Some scientists think that dinosaurs didn't 
die out" Slap said. :'Did you know that the 
bones of birds are like the bones of the 
Nanotyrannus dinosaur?"
"Is that ugly thing supposed to be a 
dinosaur?" Chris asked as he pointed to the 
photograph on the left-hand side. The giant lizard in 
the picture was baring his sharp teeth.
"That's a different article" Slap said. "That's a 
Komodo dragon. It's not a dinosaur."
"It looks like a dinosaur" Chris said. "How 
big is that thing anyway?"
"Komodo dragons are usually ten feet long" 
Slap answered "but they're not dinosaurs. 
They're lizards and they live on some islands in
the Indian Ocean."
"Lizards are reptiles and so were some 
dinosaurs" Chris said.
"Stop talking about Komodo dragons!" Slap 
yelled at his brother. "I'm trying to tell 
everybody what I read about birds!"]] 
"Those dragons look more like dinosaurs than 
your stupid birds do" Chris said.
It was true. They did. Slap glared at Chris. 
He hated it when Chris was right. "Yeah? Well 
I'd like to put you on an island with a Komodo 
dragon. They eat fresh meat just like 
Tyrannosaurus Rex did. A dragon would pick you up in 
his sharp teeth and crunch munch-"
His mother shuddered. "Not at the table 
please!" she said.
"Okay Mom" Slap said. "I didn't want to talk 
about Komodo dragons anyway. I wanted to tell 
you about how some scientists think that birds 
are related to dinosaurs. That means-"
His mother interrupted. "Everything you've 
told us is interesting" she said "but it's almost 
time for you to leave for school and you haven't 
eaten your cereal."
Slap took a big bite. Some milk ran down his 
chin so he wiped his chin on the back of his 
hand. He tried to go back to reading his magazine 
article but his father took the magazine 
out of his hand and set it aside.
"Hurry up Slap" his father said. "You can't 
be late for school."
Slap took an even bigger bite. He knew he]] 
wasn't supposed to talk while his mouth was 
full but his mother and father didn't understand. 
"Don't you see?" Slap said. "This is big 
news! If the scientists are right then dinosaurs 
aren't extinct."
Chris jumped up from the table his fingers 
curled like sharp claws. He growled at Slap and 
said "I'm a Komodo dragon and I'm coming to 
get you!"
As Chris lunged Slap ducked spilling his 
orange juice.
"Oh dear. Not again" Slap's mother said.
Slap's father mopped up the juice with paper 
towels and poured more orange juice in Slap's 
glass. "Down the hatch" he told Slap. "If you 
want to make the junior soccer team next year 
you'll need to put some meat on your bones."
Slap gulped the orange juice until it was 
gone then wiped his mouth on the back of his 
hand. He didn't want to make the junior soccer 
team next year or any year.
"Tomorrow's Saturday so we'll try to find 
time to get in a little practice" Slap's father told 
him. "Chris can help you too."
Slap knew that sports were important to his 
father because he was a P. E. teacher and ]] 
basketball coach at Porter Junior High but sports 
weren't at all important to Slap. "I'd rather read 
about dinosaurs" Slap said but nobody seemed 
to hear him.
A few minutes later Carlos Garza Slap's best 
friend and next-door neighbor came by to walk 
to school with Slap. Just ahead of them were 
Nikki Kimble and Amy Byrd the other two 
Nic-Nacs. Nic for Nicole N for Nelson A for 
Amy and C for Carlos. Nic-Nacs. Slap liked 
being one of the Nic-Nacs.
Sometimes when Nikki and Amy saw Carlos 
and Slap they walked faster trying to get to 
school first but this time they turned and 
waited for them to catch up.
Nikki said "Right after school we have to go 
to Honeycutt Park."
"Why?" Slap asked.
"Mr. Erwin called Mom" she said. "He asked 
her if we could come to the park after school 
because he has some news for our newspaper."
"Who's Mr. Erwin?" Carlos asked.
Amy said "He's the new playground director 
for Honeycutt Park."
"Did he say what his news is?" Slap asked.
Nikki brushed her hair out of her eyes. "Not]] 
exactly" she said. "All I know is that it's something 
he's planning to do for the kids who come 
to the park. He did tell Mom something strange 
though."
The others stopped and looked at her. "What 
did he say that was strange?" Amy asked.
"He said that some things around the 
swimming pool had disappeared-the key to the pool 
storage cabinet for one thing."
"Does he think someone took it?" Carlos 
asked.
"Mr. Erwin doesn't know how it happened 
because he thinks he was the only one there 
when it disappeared.
Slap gave a wicked chuckle. "Maybe the 
storage cabinet is haunted."
"Don't do that!" Nikki said. "I hate it when 
you try to scare us." She began walking toward 
school again and the others hurried to catch 
up.
"Why would anyone want the key?" Carlos 
asked. "The pool's only open on weekends now 
and will be closed all the time after September."
"Another mystery" Slap said in a deep raspy 
voice.]] 
Nikki glared at Slap. "It's not a mystery" she 
said. "It's just a missing key."
"But you said some other things were missing 
too" Slap told her.
Nikki shrugged. "Okay. The lifeguard had 
written a report about some stuff that 
disappeared during the summer.
"Aha!" Slap said.
"What disappeared?" Amy asked.
"I don't remember all of it" Nikki said.
"If you were a good reporter you'd 
remember" Slap told her.
Nikki's cheeks turned pink. "I do remember 
one thing" she said. "Mrs. Bartlett had left a 
small gold-colored ring on one of the tables 
while she went swimming and when she got 
back a few minutes later it was gone."
"That's terrible" Amy said.
Nikki shook her head. "Mrs. Bartlett said it 
was just costume jewelry and wasn't valuable."
"I mean it's terrible that somebody took it. 
Did Mrs. Bartlett see anyone near the table?"
"No" Nikki said. "During the summer she 
went swimming as soon as the pool opened 
every morning. Except for the lifeguard she 
was sometimes the only one at the pool."]] 
"The haunted swimming pool" Slap said in a 
low scary voice.
"The ring probably just rolled off the table" 
Carlos said.
"Then sooner or later someone would have 
found it" Slap said. "I think we really do have a 
mystery." This time he gave a deep cackling 
laugh.
Nikki turned to face him. "Instead of making 
scary noises why don't you solve the mystery?"
"Maybe I will" Slap said.
A leaf fell from an overhead branch hitting 
Slap on the nose. He jumped up and slapped 
the branch shaking the tree.
Four large black crows flapped up from the 
tree with loud complaints. One sailed over to a 
nearby lawn and began hunting for bugs in the 
grass but one scolded Slap before it swooped to 
the top of another tree.
"Caw caw!" Slap yelled back at it.
Carlos ran in a circle around the other Nic-
Nacs. He startled a squirrel which dropped a 
shiny gum wrapper it was holding and dashed 
across the street.
"It would have tasted terrible" Slap told the 
squirrel.]] 
Carlos jumped over a small bush and then a 
larger one. "I know what news story Mr. Erwin 
is going to give us" he said. "Every year we 
have a Sports Day so I bet he's planning a 
Sports Day."
Slap groaned. He hated Sports Day.
"I hope that's what the news is" Carlos said. 
"Sports Day is great. There are always races 
and a baseball game and a broad jump."
"And volleyball" Amy said. "That's my favorite."
"Tony likes Sports Day" Carlos said. "He 
likes to watch everyone play and it makes him 
happy if I play catch with him."
Tony-Antonio--was Carlos's little brother. 
Slap liked Tony. Everybody liked Tony. Mrs. 
Garza called Tony a special child and he went 
to a school just for children who couldn't learn
the way other children did.
"If they're going to have sack races again I'm 
going to start practicing right now" Nikki. said. 
She laughed. "I love Sports Day."
Slap didn't want to think about Sports Day. 
He knew that Chris would play in the baseball 
game and their father would wear his old 
baseball cap and cheer for Chris. And he'd tell]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Little support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues

Language: Few descriptive words

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Concepts: Concrete/Simple Social

Chapters

Features

Simple Plot

Topic

Writing

Competition

*Science

Stealing

Journalism

*Language Arts

*Family & Friends

Pets

Birds

Low Frequency Words

article	baring	cabinet	complaints	curled
diplodocus	erwin	extinct	garza	glared
gulped	haunted	honeycutt	houston	hunched
interrupted	islands	jewelry	junior	kimble
komodo	krackles	krunchy	lifeguard	lunged
nacs	nanotyrannus	neighbor	nic	photograph
porter	practicing	raspy	related	science
section	shrugged	slappey	snickering	spilling
startled	storage	tyrannosaurus	tyrannus	valuable
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