Text Leveling System

A Walk in the Rainforest

RDQ:	2189	Max Word/Sent	31	Total Words	2379		Diff Words	782
Lex	930	Ave Word/.Sent	15	Hi Freq occurs	1506	63.3%	Hi freq	261	33.4%
AR	5.3	Long Sentences	18.1	Low Freq occurs	288	12.1%	Low freq	192	24.6%

X Y Z the ant
went for a walk in the
rainforest and what do 
you think he saw?]]
He saw an amazing Anteater with a long tongue carrying her baby on her back
Anteaters are normally nomadic. They roam the jungles of Central and South America in search of ants and termites. It would be difficult for anteaters to eat much of anything else because they are completely toothless. Anteaters use their sharp powerful claws to rip into termite nests and ant burrows. Then they use their long sticky tongues to lick up the insects they find. Most anteaters live up in the trees. Only the giant anteater lives on the forest floor. He must walk on the knuckles of his front feet to keep his claws from being dulled.]]
a beautiful Bromeliad with a bright red center
Bromeliads grow on trees and on the forest floor. Every time it rains tiny puddles collect inside the plant's radiant red center. When the temperature in the rainforest gets very warm the center of the plant closes to save the precious water. Some frogs have discovered that these puddles are quite safe places to raise their young! Fortunately for the frogs more than two thousand different kinds of bromeliads thrive in Central and South America.]]
a comely Cock-of-the-Rock with a golden crown
The pigeon-sized cock-of-the-rock is found only in northern sections of the South American rainforests. Although unrelated to the chicken he is called a cock because of the male's rooster-like appearance. The "rock" part of the name was contributed by the female. She only nests on large boulders within undisturbed rainforest. Because of such odd nesting habits these bright birds are very rare.]]
a dazzling Dragonfly resting on an orchid
Dragonflies with a wingspan of up to seven inches are among the largest insects living on earth. From their earliest stages they are predators. Dragonflies eat fish larvae and all sorts of bugs including mosquitoes. Their excellent vision helps them most when hunting. Dragonflies can detect movement up to forty feet away. We don't know of any insects that have become extinct because of man. However destruction of the dragonfly's habitat by man's pollution drainage and filling in of ponds is a serious threat to these striking insects.]]
an elegant Emerald Tree Boa slithering down a branch
The emerald tree boa is found only in South America. He is ideally suited for his forest environment. While waiting in the branches for his next meal he looks like a long slender vine. This camouflaged canopy hunter is primarily a predator of tree frogs but he will sometimes try to sneak up on and devour an iguana. Like a monkey's tail the prehensile tail of the boa acts as a hand. With the help of his handy tail the emerald tree boa coils around branches when resting.]]
a feathery Fern on the forest floor
Ferns are found in every rainforest. There are over seven hundred different species of ferns. The Malaysian tree fern is one of the tallest. It can grow to be fifty feet tall. Most ferns grow on the forest floor but some are epiphytes that grow on other trees for support. Many kinds of ferns are plentiful and all like the warm humid environment of the rainforest.]]
a gentle giant Gorilla grinning in the green growth
Gorillas are big hairy and very strong. An adult male gorilla can grow to be six feet tall and may weigh 450 pounds. He could easily win a tug of war with six men. Even though they may look quite fierce gorillas are really gentle. They live peacefully on the ground of the African rainforest in family groups called troops. A troop of gorillas may have five to thirty individuals. The head of each troop is an adult male called a silverback. Gorillas need to live in dense forests where they can find the huge amounts of leaves stems and fruits they need to survive. Adult gorillas eat about forty pounds of food each day! If they get enough food and if they are not killed by hunters gorillas can live to be fifty years old.]]
a hurried Hummingbird sipping nectar from a passion flower
Over three hundred species of hummingbirds make their home in the Americas. However they are most common in the rainforests of South America. They range from 2 inches to 8 1/2 inches long and come in a variety of brilliant colors. Hummingbird feathers shimmer and shine so beautifully that they seem to change colors. That is why many of them are named after jewels like rubies sapphires and emeralds. These tiny jewels fly amazingly fast-up to seventy-one miles per hour. Hummingbirds use their long beaks and tongues to sip nectar from flowers. The flowers of the rainforests need these speedy nectar sippers to pollinate them.]]
an intriguing Iguana basking on a branch
The iguana is a large lizard. The green iguana the only type that lives in the rainforests grows up to six feet long! Besides being completely camouflaged green iguanas are extremely agile and fast. They like to sleep in trees that overhang water. Iguanas can drop forty to fifty feet from a tree to the ground and also will jump into water and swim away from predators. Their diet is generally made up of plant food but they liven it up with an occasional insect or two. Unfortunately iguanas are threatened by too much hunting. However captive breeding projects have been started in Panama and Costa Rica to save the iguana.]]
a jumbo Jaguar just about ready to jump
The jaguar is an enormous cat that may weigh well over two hundred pounds. It is at the top of the food web in American rainforests: It can kill and eat anything it finds but nothing eats it. The jaguar finds anything from deer to alligators quite delicious. It hunts in the water and in the trees to find its favorite delicacies. Some jaguars are protected in safe reserves by a car manufacturer that is called jaguar.]]
a kingly Kapok tree that is home to many plants and animals
The kapok tree is found in African and American rainforests. Because this tree can grow to be 150-200 feet tall giant buttress roots are necessary to hold it up. While other trees flower in the dry season kapok trees flower only in the flood season. The flowers produce cotton-like seeds which are blown in the wind and eventually carried away by the river. Natives attach kapok fuzz to the rear of their blowgun darts. Kapok is also used as the stuffing in some life jackets.]]
a legion of Leaf-Cutter Ants marching along a liana
Leaf-cutter ants are fantastic fungus farmers. First the leaf-cutter ants cut up the leaves with their scissor-like mandibles (or teeth). Next they carry the pieces back to their underground nest and chew them into pulp. After that they wait for the fungus to grow on the leaves and then they eat the fungus. This process can be compared to the way we grow mushrooms. The rainforest probably has more ants than any other kind of animal. One leaf-cutter ant colony can have over five million ants in it!]]
two majestic Military Macaws sitting quietly for a change
Macaws are the largest of all parrots. The brightly colored military macaws are especially noisy. Macaws have long pointed wings that enable them to fly swiftly. Their sharp hooked bills are perfect for eating nuts fruits and seeds. Macaws have feet with a very strong grip. Two of their toes point forward and two point backward. They can use their foot to grasp food and bring it to their mouth. Macaws can be found in Central and South America. However along with other rare kinds of macaws the military macaw must retreat into shrinking pockets of undisturbed rainforest to escape capture by humans.
a natural Native who needs the rainforest to survive
Native peoples have lived along the Amazon for over 12500 years. African tribes have also existed in the rainforest for thousands of generations. The earliest natives were hunter-gatherers but later some discovered farming and began to farm small plots of land. Because of their long history of living close to nature natives are able to identify thousands of different plants and animals that even expert biologists find difficult to tell apart. They also recognize hazardous plants and animals and they are expert hunters. Most native peoples travel in small family groups of twenty to one hundred. Natives live in harmony with their environment and depend on it for all of their needs.]]
an observant Ocelot listening to the night noises of the jungle
The ocelot lives mostly in the understory of the South American rainforests. He is an expert climber feeding on small birds lizards and mice. The pattern on his fur provides perfect camouflage in the dappled light of the understory. The ocelot's fur also makes beautiful coats for humans. Sadly the ocelot is now very rare because he has been hunted too much for his lovely coat.]]
petite Poison-Arrow Frogs on a palm leaf
The poison-arrow frog is very small and poisonous. Native hunters dip the points of their blowgun darts in the strong poison produced by this frog. No bigger than a man's thumbnail the poison-arrow frog is found in South American rainforests. These tiny frogs lay their eggs on leaves. When the tadpole hatches it is carried on the parents' back to a bromeliad where it grows to be a frog.]]
a quiet Resplendent Quetzal with long lovely tail feathers
The resplendent quetzal of Central America is truly amazing. Natives have used its three-foot-long emerald tail feathers for elaborate head dresses worn by tribal chiefs. The quetzal eats forty-three different species of fruit. It has adapted enormous chest muscles that enable it to hover in front of these different plants while eating their fruit. The wild avocado is a favorite food of the colorful quetzal. There are so few of these birds left in the rainforest that they are considered an endangered species.]]
a ravishing Red-eyed Tree Frog with big bulgy eyes
The inch-long red-eyed tree frog makes his home in the disappearing tropical rainforests of eastern Central America. His name comes from his bulging red eyes that help him see better in dim light. His brightly colored skin serves as a warning to predators that he might be poisonous. While many tree frogs cling to branches and leaves with suction-tipped toes the red-eyed tree frog can also grip twigs as monkeys do.]]
a slow Sloth suspended in a tree
Sloths are fantastically slow-moving creatures found only in the rainforest canopies of South America. There are two kinds of sloths: those with three toes and those with only two. Sloths look grey-green in color because they move so slowly that tiny camouflaging algae grow all over their coats. Their enormous hooked claws and long arms make it possible for them to spend most of their time hanging from trees. The upside-down position of the sloth makes it convenient to feast on drooping leaves and fruits. The sloth does everything upside down. He even sleeps that way.]]
a terrific Toucan with a colorful beak
The keel-billed toucan of South and Central America seems to be mostly beak! He uses his big bill to squash the many kinds of fruit he eats. Figs are his favorite snack. The bright colors of the bill of the toucan help to attract a mate. When he is sleeping the toucan lays his big beak on his back and covers it with his wings and tail. The toucan is very important to the rainforest because he helps to distribute seeds from the fruits he eats.]]
an unusual Urania Butterfly with an undulating pattern
Although butterflies are found almost everywhere tropical rainforests have more kinds of butterflies than any other part of the world. In the rainforests of South America and Central America there are over ten thousand species! Butterflies are abundant in the rainforest because the warm damp climate is the perfect place for flowering plants to grow and flowers always attract butterflies. The beautifully colored butterflies feed on the nectar and help to pollinate the flowers they eat from at the same time. The urania butterfly is one lovely example of the many intricate patterns that butterflies have on their wings. The bright colors may help the butterfly to attract a mate and they also may be a form of camouflage that helps him vanish into the forest backgrounds.]]
a vibrant Vanilla Orchid with very flavorful fruit
Orchids are found all over the rainforest world. There are as many as one thousand different kinds of orchids in Costa Rica alone. Besides growing on the ground many orchids live in trees. Like the bromeliad and some ferns orchids use the trees they live in to be closer to light but gain their food from rainwater and debris that washes down the bark. These kinds of plants are called epiphytes. One of the most interesting orchids is the vanilla orchid the only type that is a vine. From the fruit of this extraordinary plant the world obtains vanilla. It is the flavor used to make vanilla ice cream and other good things to eat.]]
and wonderfully wet Water washing over the rocks!
Water is everywhere in the rainforest. Rivers and streams criss-cross like highways on a road map. There is so much water in the air that it feels the same as when you've just come out of a steamy hot shower. It rains one hundred to four hundred inches every year there and that is why we call it a rainforest. In the rainy season some of the rivers and lakes flood all the way to the tree tops. Each of the animals in all of the rainforests needs water to survive. Frogs live in it jaguars hunt in it anteaters drink it and native peoples swim in it. The rainforest could not live without water.]]
X Y Z it's plain to see the rainforest is full of diversity.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Some support

Vocabulary: Many difficult words

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Many Long Complex

Text structure: Formal

Inferences: Several Implications

Complexity: Many different ideas

Features

Integral Setting

Alliteration

Topic

*Plants

Alphabet

Rain Forests

*Animals

*Habitats/Environments

Low Frequency Words

abundant	adapted	agile	algae	amazingly
basking	biologists	blowgun	boa	boulders
bromeliads	bulging	bulgy	buttress	camouflage
camouflaged	camouflaging	canopies	climate	colony
comely	contributed	convenient	dappled	debris
delicacies	delicious	destruction	devour	disappearing
distribute	diversity	dragonflies	dragonfly's	drainage
drooping	dulled	earliest	eastern	elaborate
elegant	emerald	emeralds	endangered	environment
epiphytes	eventually	excellent	extinct	extraordinary
extremely	eyed	fantastically	feathery	fern
ferns	flavorful	flowering	fortunately	fungus
gatherers	generally	generations	grasp	grey
growth	habitat	harmony	hatches	hazardous
hover	humid	ideally	identify	iguana
iguanas	intricate	intriguing	jaguar	jaguars
jewels	jumbo	jungles	kapok	keel
kingly	knuckles	larvae	legion	liana
liven	macaw	macaws	majestic	malaysian
mandibles	manufacturer	military	mosquitoes	movement
mushrooms	natives	nature	nectar	nesting
nomadic	northern	observant	obtains	occasional
ocelot	ocelot's	orchid	orchids	overhang
panama	passion	peacefully	petite	pigeon
plentiful	pockets	poisonous	pollinate	pollution
precious	predator	predators	prehensile	primarily
process	produce	projects	provides	pulp
quetzal	radiant	rainforest	rainforests	rainwater
ravishing	recognize	reserves	resplendent	retreat
rica	rubies	sapphires	scissor	season
sections	seventy	shimmer	shower	shrinking
sippers	sipping	slender	slithering	sloths
squash	stages	suction	suited	survive
suspended	swiftly	termite	termites	terrific
threat	threatened	thrive	thumbnail	tongues
toothless	toucan	tribal	tropical	truly
understory	undisturbed	undulating	unfortunately	unrelated
urania	vanilla	variety	vibrant	vision
wingspan	wonderfully