Text Leveling System

The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash

RDQ:	234	Max Word/Sent	24	Total Words	404		Diff Words	173
Lex	490	Ave Word/.Sent	8	Hi Freq occurs	229	56.7%	Hi freq	70	40.5%
AR	2.0	Long Sentences	2.1	Low Freq occurs	13	3.2%	Low freq	4	2.3%

"How was you class field trip to the farm?" ]]
"Oh...boring...kind of dull...until the cow started crying." ]]
"A cow...crying?" 
"Yeah you see a haystack fell on her." ]]
"But a haystack doesn't just fall over."]]
"It does if a farmer crashes into it with his tractor." 
"Oh come on a farmer wouldn't do that." ]]
"He would if he were too busy yelling at the pigs to get 
off our school bus." ]]
"What were the pigs doing on the bus?"]]
"Eating our lunches." ]]
"Why were they eating lunches?" 
"Because we threw their corn at each other 
and they didn't have anything else to eat." ]]
"Well that makes sense but why were you throwing corn?" 
"Because we ran out of eggs." 
"Out of eggs? Why were you throwing eggs?" ]]
"Because of the boa constrictor." 
"The Boa Constrictor!" 
"Yeah Jimmy's pet boa constrictor." ]]
 "What was Jimmy's pet boa constrictor doing on the farm?" 
"Oh he brought it to meet all the farm animals 
but the chickens didn't like it." ]]
"You mean he took it into the hen house?" 
"Yeah and the chickens started squawking and flying around." ]]
"Go on go on. What happened?" 
"Well one hen got excited and laid an egg and it landed 
on Jenny's head." 
"The hen?" 
"No the egg. And it broke - yucky - all over her hair." ]]
"What did she do?" 
"She got mad because she thought Tommy threw it so she threw 
one at him." 
"What did Tommy do?" 
"Oh he ducked and the egg hit Marianne in the face. ]]
So she threw one at Jenny but she missed and hit Jimmy 
who dropped his boa constrictor." ]]
"Oh and I know the next thing you knew everyone was 
throwing eggs right?" 
"Right." ]]
"And when you ran out of eggs you threw the pigs' corn 
right?" 
"Right again." ]]
"Well what finally stopped it?"
"Well we heard the farmer's wife screaming." 
"Why was she screaming?" ]]
"We never found out because Mrs. Stanley made us get on the 
bus and we sort of left in a hurry without the boa constrictor." ]]
"I bet Jimmy was sad because he left his pet boa constrictor." 
"Oh not really. We left in such a hurry that one of the pigs 
didn't get off the bus so now he's got a pet pig." ]]
"Boy that sure sounds like an exciting trip." 
"Yeah I suppose if you're the kind of kid who likes 
class trips to the farm." ]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Moderate support

Dialog: Two speakers

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: Few decoding/definition issues

Language: Few descriptive words

Sentences: Simple phrases

Text structure: Oral/Natural

Inferences: Some implications

Concept: Fanciful

Features

Topic

Snakes

Storytelling

Elaboration

Field Trips

Farms

Pets

School

Low Frequency Words

boa

constrictor

lunches

squawking