Text Leveling System

Karen's Carnival

RDQ:	626	Max Word/Sent	32	Total Words	1248		Diff Words	408
Lex	670	Ave Word/.Sent	7	Hi Freq occurs	860	68.9%	Hi freq	182	44.6%
AR	3.0	Long Sentences	6	Low Freq occurs	42	3.4%	Low freq	35	8.6%

Nothing to do
""What do you want to do today?"" I
asked my friend Hannie.
""I don't know. Nancy, what do you want
to do?"" asked Hannie.
""I don't know. What do you want to do, 
Karen?""
""I asked first!"" I replied. ""I don't know
what to do.""
Hannie and Nancy and I are best friends.
We call ourselves the Three Musketeers.
It was a saturday afternoon. A really boring]]
 Saturday afternoon. My friends and I 
were sitting on the back steps at my father's 
house. Usually, we can think of lots of 
things to do.
But not that day.
""Let's play Going Camping,"" said 
Nancy.
""Nah,"" replied Hannie. ""We need too 
much stuff for that. Hey, let's build a tree 
house.""
""A tree house!"" I exclaimed. ""But we 
would need wood and nails and a ladder 
and probably Daddy.""
Hannie and Nancy looked disappointed. 
""Yeah,"" they agreed.
""I know!"" I cried. ""Let's go to the 
playground.""
""What playground?"" asked Nancy.
""The one at Stoneybrook Elementary.
Where David Michael goes to school.""
(David Michael is my stepbrother. We are
both seven, but we go to different schools.
I go to Stoneybrook Academy. So do Hannie]]
 and Nancy. We are in Ms. Colman's 
second-grade class.)
""The playground is pretty far away,"" said 
Nancy.
""We'll ride bikes, then,"" I replied. ""I 
know how to get there. Nancy, you can 
borrow David Michael's bike."" (Hannie 
lives across the street from Daddy's house. 
But Nancy does not live in the neighborhood. 
She lives next door to my mommy's 
house. Her father had driven her here to 
play with us. So she did not have a bicycle.)
""Okay!"" cried Nancy. ""Let's find your 
daddy and ask if we can go.""
My friends and I clattered inside. We did 
not find Daddy. We found Elizabeth. 
Elizabeth is my stepmother.
Guess what. Elizabeth said we could not 
go to the playground. ""It's too far away. I 
cannot let you ride there by yourselves.""
""Can't Kristy come with us?"" I asked. 
Kristy is my stepsister. She is thirteen years 
old and she is a baby-sitter.]] 
""Kristy's not home, honey,"" said Elizabeth. 
""Neither are Sam and Charlie. I'll be 
happy to drive you to the playground, 
though. I bet Andrew and Emily Michelle 
would like to come, too.""
""That's okay."" I scuffed my feet. ""Come 
on, you guys,"" I said to Nancy and Hannie.
This was the problem. I did not want to 
go to the playground with a grown-up and 
my little brother and sister. I wanted us to 
go on our own.
Boo.
Nancy and Hannie understood the problem. 
They followed me back to the porch.
""Now what?"" asked Nancy. ""There's 
nothing to do.""
""We could go roller-skating,"" suggested 
Hannie. ""Oh, wait. No, we couldn't. My 
skates do not fit anymore.""
""And I don't have any skates,"" said 
Nancy.
""You really should have a pair,"" Hannie 
told her.]] 
""It doesn't matter anyway,"" I said. ""I left 
my skates at Mommy's.""
""You are always leaving things at your 
mother's house,"" said Hannie crossly.
Well, for heaven's sake. Hannie ought to 
know why that happens.]] 
Here, There,
and Everywhere
I am forever leaving things behind, 
because I live at two houses.
Who am I? I am Karen Brewer. I have 
freckles and blonde hair and blue eyes. I 
wear glasses - all the time.
I bet you are wondering why I live at two 
houses - Mommy's house and Daddy's 
house. Well, this is because my mommy 
and daddy are divorced. They used to be 
married. They loved each other then. So 
they had Andrew and me. (Andrew is four, 
going on five.) After awhile, Mommy and]] 
Daddy realized they loved Andrew and me 
very much - but they did not love each 
other anymore. So they got divorced.
My family had been living in Daddy's big 
house. (He grew up there.) After the 
divorce, Mommy moved to another house 
here in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. It is 
littler than Daddy's house. Andrew and I 
moved with her. But do you know what? 
After awhile, Mommy and Daddy both got 
married again! Mommy married a man 
named Seth. He is my stepfather. And 
Daddy married Elizabeth.
At the little house live Mommy, Seth, 
Emily Junior (my rat), Rocky and Midgie 
(Seth's cat and dog), and Andrew and I. 
But Andrew and I only live there most of 
the time. Every other weekend, and on 
some holidays and vacations, we live at the 
big house.
A lot of other people live at the big house. 
Besides Daddy, Elizabeth, Andrew, and me 
there are Elizabeth's four kids: Kristy; my 
big stepbrothers Sam and Charlie, who go]] 
to high school; and David Michael. Then 
there is Emily Michelle, who is my adopted 
two-and-a-half-year-old sister (she comes 
from a faraway country called Vietnam). 
And there is Nannie, Elizabeth's mother, 
who watches Emily while everyone else is 
at work or school. There are some pets, too. 
There's Boo-Boo, Daddy's fat old cat; Shannon, 
David Michael's puppy; and Crystal 
Light the Second and Goldfishie, who are 
goldfish. (Duh.) Isn't that a lot? The big 
house is crowded and noisy. I just love it. 
Except for one thing. A witch lives next 
door. Her name is Morbidda Destiny. The 
grown-ups do not believe she is a witch. 
They say she is just an old lady. And that 
her name is Mrs. Porter. But I know better.
Can you guess why I gave the nicknames 
Andrew Two-Two and Karen Two-Two to 
my brother and me? I call us two-twos 
because we have two of so many things. 
Andrew and I have two houses, two mommies, 
and two daddies. I have two 
bicycles, one at each house. Andrew has two]] 
tricycles. We have toys and books and 
clothes at each house. I have a big-house 
best friend (Hannie), and a little-house best 
friend (Nancy). I even have two stuffed 
cats. They look just alike. Moosie lives at 
the big house, Goosie lives at the little 
house.
(I got the name ""two-two"" from the title 
of a book Ms. Colman read to my class this 
year. It was called Jacob Two-Two Meets the 
Hooded Fang.)
But Andrew and I do not have two of 
everything, which can be hard. For example, 
I used to have only one special blanket. 
Tickly. I liked to sleep with Tickly every 
night. But I was always forgetting and leaving 
Tickly at one house or the other. Finally 
I had to tear Tickly into two pieces. That 
way, I could have a piece at each house. (I 
hope I did not hurt Tickly.)
I also do not have two pairs of roller 
skates. I love to skate. But I cannot remember 
everything. And sometimes Hannie 
gets mad when I forget to bring my skates]] 
to the big house. Hannie does not understand 
that being a two-two is difficult. I like 
having two houses and two families. But I 
do not like missing things. I do not like 
missing Emily Junior when I am at the big 
house. (Oh, by the way, I named my rat 
after Emily Michelle.) I do not like missing 
Mommy when I am at the big house. And 
when I am at the little house, I do not like 
missing Crystal Light the Second and 
Daddy and Emily Michelle, and Kristy, my 
special big sister. 
But when you are a two-two, that's life.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Little support

Inferences: Some implications

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues

Language: Few descriptive words

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Story/Poem

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Concepts: Concrete/Simple Social

Features

Simple Plot

Topic

Games

Helping

*Entertainment & Fun

*Family & Friends

*Feelings, Behaviors

Low Frequency Words

academy	borrow	daddies	destiny	disappointed
divorce	elementary	faraway	freckles	goldfishie
goosie	hooded	junior	littler	moosie
morbidda	musketeers	nah	nannie	neighborhood
nicknames	ought	ourselves	porter	sake
scuffed	stepbrother	stepbrothers	stepfather	stepsister
stoneybrook	tickly	vacations	vietnam	yourselves