Text Leveling System

Landon's Pumpkins

RDQ:	485	Max Word/Sent	26	Total Words	871		Diff Words	358
Lex	630	Ave Word/.Sent	11	Hi Freq occurs	513	58.9%	Hi freq	136	38%
AR	2.7	Long Sentences	4	Low Freq occurs	48	5.5%	Low freq	31	8.7%

Landon was carrying the papers, cans, and plastic to the recycle bins after dinner. A bright newspaper ad caught his attention.
Get Your Seeds Now for Fall Harvest
Bright orange pumpkins, yellow corn, and green beans smiled from the ad.
Landon remembered last Halloween. He and Chad, his five-year-old brother, had spent their allowances on two pumpkins. Chad had drawn a scary face on his with markers. Landon had wanted to try carving his own for the first time. Dad had showed him how to hold the knife and cut safely. Landon had worked on his pumpkin for a long time, but he had really messed it up. It hadn't looked at all like a jack-o'-lantern. He wanted to start over, but he had no other pumpkin to carve.
Landon put the plastics, cans, and papers in the proper recycling bins and hurried to find his father.
"Dad, do you remember that sick-looking jack-o-lantern I carved last year?"
"Um, I remember." Dad set his book down as Landon sat on the couch beside him.
"Well, I was thinking, I could use my allowance to buy pumpkin seeds. Then I could grow pumpkins. I'd have enough of them for Chad and me to practice carving."
"That sounds like a good plan," Dad said.
"I would need a space in the garden to plant them," Landon said.
"Oh, I think we can manage that," Dad said.]]
The next day, Dad tilled a small patch of ground in the garden. "Get some compost, and we'll mix it in the soil."
Landon knew that they would need compost to make the plants healthy. 
All year long, he had put grass clippings, fallen leaves, and fruit and vegetable peels into the compost drum, and then covered each layer with dirt. Dad had told him that this reduced the garbage they sent to the landfill.
After raking the tilled ground, Landon followed the directions on the seed packet. He planted the pumpkin seeds he bought at the store in three little mounds. He planted four or five seeds in each mound. He left an arms-length space between each mound for the vines to grow. Then he stamped the dirt down with his feet. Finally he got the watering can, filled it with water, and gently sprinkled each mound until the soil was wet. ]]
In a few days, Landon saw little green shoots making cracks in the ground. In another few days, the shoots grew leaves.
"It looks like frost tonight," said the weather reporter on television. "You'd better make sure your tender garden plants are covered."
Landon thought and thought. How can I protect my pumpkins? A blanket or newspapers might smash the little plants.
After dinner, Landon spotted three empty, plastic two-liter juice bottles on the counter. It was his job to take them out to the recycle bin. They might work, he thought. He cut off the bottoms of the bottles and tossed the bottoms into the plastics bin. Then he took the top parts out to his pumpkin patch and set one over each tiny plant like a miniature greenhouse.
Dad smiled. "I'm glad to see you reusing things."
Landon took the bottles off in the morning so the plants wouldn't bake in the sun. He saved the bottles to use the following night.
Soon the nights turned warmer, and the plants were too large for the bottles. Landon pulled stubborn weeds and watered his thirsty plants. 
As the temperature crept higher, pumpkin vines stretched over the ground like a carpet of ivy. 
Landon happily wiped the sweat from his face when he realized that no room remained for more weeds to grow. Soon bright yellow flowers appeared, and then small green balls grew in their place. The vines sprawled onto the lawn and into Dad's part of the garden. ]]
The green balls grew bigger and bigger. By Halloween, Landon had a dozen bright orange pumpkins. He sold six to the neighbors, gave Chad three, and saved three for himself.
Landon cut the tops off his three pumpkins and scooped out the insides. Yuck, he thought, this looks like good stuff for the compost drum for next year's garden.
Then he noticed that the seeds looked just like the ones he had planted in the spring. I can recycle these to grow pumpkins next year, he thought, and I won't have to buy new ones. Landon spread the seeds on paper to dry. But there were many more seeds than he wanted to plant.
"Dad, do you know of anything I can do with a hundred pumpkin seeds?" Landon asked.
"Well, when I was a boy, we used to roast them in the oven and eat them," Dad said. "They tasted pretty good." 
"Hey, Dad, good idea. I can reuse them as a snack."
"Who would have thought I could use the three R's-reduce, reuse, and recycle-to grow pumpkins?" he said.
Landon drew faces on his pumpkins. Then he followed the lines with his carving knife. Each pumpkin looked better than the one before!
On Halloween night, Landon was proud of the six scary jack-o'-lanterns that glowed on the front porch!]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Some support

Dialog: Two speakers

Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues

Language: Few descriptive words

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Blend of written/oral

Inferences: Some implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Table of Contents

Glossary

Headings

Additional activities

Features

Character traits

Simple problem/solution

Simple Plot

Topic

Seeds

*Plants

Gardens/Gardening

Halloween

Recycling

Low Frequency Words

allowance	allowances	clippings	compost	drawn
halloween	harvest	healthy	ivy	landfill
landon	lantern	lanterns	manage	markers
miniature	mound	mounds	neighbors	packet
raking	recycle	recycling	reduce	reuse
reusing	sprawled	stubborn	sweat	tilled
watered