Text Leveling System

Bigmama's

RDQ:	316	Max Word/Sent	27	Total Words	647		Diff Words	295
Lex	550	Ave Word/.Sent	9	Hi Freq occurs	409	63.2%	Hi freq	111	37.6%
AR	2.2	Long Sentences	5.6	Low Freq occurs	19	2.9%	Low freq	17	5.8%

"Did you see her? Did you see bigmama? 
We called our Grandma Bigmama Not that she was big but she was Mama's mama. Every summer we went to see her - Mama my sisters my brother  and me. Daddy had to work. He'd come later. It took three days and two nights on the train. Now we were nearly there. "Cottondale. Cottondale. Next station stop Cottondale" yelled the conductor to the nearly empty train. "Don't leave no babies on this train." He made the same joke year after year. My uncle Slank came for us by car. We always hoped he'd come with the horse and wagon but he never did. We crossed back over the train tracks a turn or two along the red dirt road and onto the lane in front of Bigmama's house. Bigmama and Bigpapa were waiting for us on the porch. There were hugs and kisses and "Oh my how you've grown!" and "How tall you are...is this you?" Then off with our shoes and socks. We wouldn't need them much in the next few weeks. Now to see that nothing had changed. In the hall the sewing machine that you had to pedal like a bicycle. The big clock over the fireplace. The wind-up record player. The kerosene lamps and the Sears Roebuck catalogs. Our room - my brother's and mine and Uncle Slank's. Across the hall the room where my sisters and Mama slept. Next to it Bigmama's and Bigpapa's room. Then to the back porch. Off the porch there were three rooms. The tiny extra room no bigger than the bed in it. None of us wanted to sleep there alone. The dining room with the big round table and chairs. And next to it the kitchen. On the porch was a washstand where we washed our hands faces - and feet. At the end of the porch was the well. "Don't fall in" we were told every year. No one ever did! We stood on tiptoe to watch the bucket go down and fill with water so that we could have a drink from the dipper that hung nearby. Everything was just the same. In the backyard was the chicken coop where Sunday dinner's chicken spent its last days. Behind the shed full of old stuff was the outhouse. Okay now but scary in the dark. We stopped for a drink at the pump. We ran past the pear tree where the turkeys roosted at night. Under the tractor in the toolshed was a good place to look for nests with eggs in them. Next to the toolshed was the huge empty pot for making syrup from sugar cane juice. I dug some worms from the big pile of cane pulp. Wigglers were the best kind for fishing. I chose a pole. The barn was another place to look for eggs. On to the stable to see Nancy and Maude. Maude was friendly but Nancy was a biter. Down the path past the cow pen and the pig pen to the pond. The flat-bottomed boat was still there. Plenty of water for fishing and swimming this year. Everything just as it should be. "A fish! A fish! I got one I got one!" I yelled.  "Whoo...whoo..." The train whistle. Dinnertime. Everybody sitting around the table that filled the room - Bigmama Bigpapa Uncle Slank our cousins from down the road and all of us. We talked about what we did last year. We talked about what we were going to do this year. We talked so much we hardly had time to eat. The night was jet black except for millions of stars. We could hardly sleep thinking about the things to come. Some nights even now I think that I might wake up in the morning and be at Bigmama's with the whole summer ahead of me.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Some support

Dialog: Simple

Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues

Language: Few descriptive words

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Some implications

Concepts: Concrete/Simple Social

Features

Integral Setting - Historical

Topic

Trains

Vacations

Summer

Remembering

Family

Farms

Grandparents

*Feelings, Behaviors

Low Frequency Words

biter	conductor	coop	cousins	kerosene
maude	outhouse	pulp	roebuck	roosted
sears	stable	syrup	toolshed	turkeys
washstand	wigglers