Text Leveling System

The Year of Billy Miller

RDQ:	1312	Max Word/Sent	41	Total Words	3119		Diff Words	920
Lex	800	Ave Word/.Sent	8	Hi Freq occurs	2222	71.2%	Hi freq	409	44.5%
AR	4.1	Long Sentences	6	Low Freq occurs	153	4.9%	Low freq	124	13.5%

It was the first day of second grade and Billy Miller was worried. He was worried that he wouldn't be smart enough for school this year. There was a reason he was worried. Two weeks earlier on their drive home from visiting Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills of South Dakota, Billy Miller and his family stopped in Blue Earth, Minnesota, to see the statue of the Jolly Green Giant. Billy instantly recognized the Giant from the ]]
too. Everything seemed all right until a few
nights later when Billy overheard his parents
talking in the kitchen.
"I'm worried about him," said Mama.
"He's fine," said Papa. "Everyone said he's
fine. And he seems fine. He is fine."
"You're probably right," said Mama. "But
I worry that down the line something will
show up. He'll start forgetting things."
"He already forgets things," said Papa.
"He's a seven-year-old boy."
"You know what I mean," said Mama. She
paused. "Or he'll be confused at school. Or ... "
That's all Billy heard. He snuck up to his
room and closed the door. And that's when he
started to worry.]]
Billy didn't tell anyone that he was worried.
Sometimes, he didn't know how to say what
he was thinking. He had words in his head,
but they didn't always make it to his mouth.
This happened often, even before the fall.
"Happy first day of school," said Mama .
"Happy first day of school," said Papa.
Billy had noticed long ago that one of his
parents often repeated what the other said.
Without taking the time to sit at the table,
Mama rushed about the kitchen, stealing
a few bites of Papa's toast and a gulp of his]]
coffee. She hoisted her big canvas bag onto
the counter and reorganized its contents.
It was Mama's first day of school, too. She
taught English at the high school down the
street.
While Billy was eating his pancakes, Papa
reread aloud the letter that Ms. Silver, the
second grade teacher, had sent during the
summer.
In the letter Ms. Silver greeted the students
and said she was looking forward to
the new school year. She said that she and
her husband had a baby boy at home. And
two dogs. She said that second grade would
be "a safe, happy year of growth" and "a
wonderful, joyful, exciting challenge."]]
Billy stopped chewing when he heard the
word challenge. He put down his fork and
touched the lump on his head. He didn't want
a challenge.
Papa continued. "Ms. Silver says you'll be
studying colors and habitats and the world of
names."
"That sounds like fun," said Mama.
"My students will be studying Beowulf and
Paradise Lost."
"I'd rather be in second grade," said Papa,
smiling.
Unlike the other fathers Billy knew, Papa
stayed home and took care of Sal and the
house. Papa was an artist. He was waiting
for a breakthrough. That's what he always]]
said. He was currently working on big sculptures
made of found objects. Pieces of old
machines, tree limbs, and broken furniture
filled the garage and spilled out onto the
driveway. They were scattered across the
yard, too. Billy loved watching Papa work.
There was always something lying around
that was fun to play with.
"Gotta go," said Mama. She kissed Papa
on his bushy orange beard. She kissed
Billy on his lump. "Have a fantastic day,"
she said. "And kiss Sal for me when she
wakes up."
Just like that, Mama was gone, the smell
of her lemony shampoo hanging in the air for
a moment.]]
Papa cleared his throat and shook Ms.
Silver's letter with a flourish. Billy could tell
he was trying to be funny. In a deep, rumbly
voice he said, "This utterly fascinating
letter concludes by stating that currently
this is, in fact, according to the Chinese, the
Year of the Rabbit." Papa used his regular
voice again. "That's pretty great, don't you
think? The Year of the Rabbit."
Billy shrugged. Normally this would have
interested him, but he was preoccupied.
"Maybe you'll have carrots for a snack
every day," said Papa.
Silence.
"Papa?" said Billy.
"Hmm?"]]
"But, Papa, will I be smart enough for
second grade?"
"Of course you will," said Papa. He was
looking right at Billy, directly into his eyes.
Billy glanced down at what was left of
his pancakes. With his thick, work-gnarled
finger, Papa lifted Billy's chin. Their eyes
met and held. "Ms. Silver and the great
nation of China might think that this is
the Year of the Rabbit," said Papa. "But I
know-and I know everything-that this is
the Year of Billy Miller."
Billy smiled. He couldn't not. He repeated
Papa's words in his head. This is the Year of
Billy Miller.]]
Billy was waiting by the front door. "I'm
ready," he said.
Papa was waiting at the bottom of the
stairs. "We're ready," he yelled up to Sal.
"I'm ready, too," Sal called back from the
upstairs hallway. "It's the Drop Sisters who
are slow this morning. They all have to go to
the bathroom."
"Well, tell them to hurry up," said Papa.
"We need to leave."]]
"Coming," said Sal. The toilet flushed.
Then Sal descended the stairs dragging a
grungy pillowcase behind her. The pillowcase
was full and lumpy, and it bumped silently
down each step. Inside the pillowcase were
the five Drop Sisters: Raindrop, Dewdrop,
Snowdrop, Gumdrop, and Lemondrop. They
were nearly identical, pale yellow plush
whales. Each had blue button eyes and water
spouts made of glittery white yarn.
Raindrop was the
original Drop Sister
and was the most
worn, the most 
beloved. The others had been bought by
Mama and Papa or given by relatives in case]]
Raindrop was ever lost. They'd been hidden
in Mama and Papa's closet. One day Sal found
them by accident and adopted them instantly.
"I think you're smarter after you go to the
bathroom," said Sal.
"I didn't know that," said Papa. With his
hand on her shoulder, he scooted Sal along.
"We don't want to be late."
"I wish I could go to school," said Sal.
"You will," said Papa. "Soon enough."
"I wish I could go now," said Sal.
"I wish you could go for me," said Billy.
"Go, go, go," said Papa. "Everybody go."
And they-Billy, Papa, Sal, and the
Drop Sisters-were off to Georgia O'Keeffe
Elementary School in Constant, Wisconsin.]]
Billy's best friend, Ned, was leaning against
the stop sign at the corner. His mother, Amy,
was standing beside him, fluffing his hair.
She glanced at her watch.
"We're running a little late," said Papa,
leading the way, nearing the corner. "Sorry."
"Hi, Lumpy," Ned said to Billy. He laughed.
"Hi, Papa." He ignored Sal.
"My lump's almost gone," said Billy. He
hoped that when the lump disappeared so,
too, would his worrying.
"Don't call him Papa," said Sal. "He's not
your papa. You should call him Cliff."
Ned paid no attention to Sal.
Ned always called Billy's father Papa.]]
Billy thought this was funny, but it
bothered Sal. Ned called his own father
Dad; everyone Billy knew called their own
fathers Dad. When he was little, Ned had
thought that Papa was a name like Billy or
Cliff or Sal. Now he knew better, but it was
a habit hard to break and a joke everyone
but Sal enjoyed. Lately Billy had considered
calling Papa "Dad" in public. He wondered if
the word Papa sounded babyish. It was one
thing for Ned to use it for fun, but another
thing for Billy to use it for real.
"I can't believe you two are second
graders," said Amy.
"I can't believe you're walking us to
school," said Ned.]]
"Just today," said Amy. "Give your poor
mother a little joy."
"And we'll stay a safe distance behind
you," said Papa. "We won't embarrass you."
It was only five short blocks to school. Billy
and Ned walked as fast as they could, to get
away from their parents. Walking fast made
something click inside Billy. He felt as if he
had a motor embedded in his chest, independent
of his control. The motor was revving
up. "Let's run," he said.
After several long strides, Billy heard the
joyful, rowdy sounds of his schoolmates, and
was drawn to them as if he were being pulled
by a strong invisible force. When they reached
the edge of the playground, Billy turned]]
around. Papa, Sal, and Amy were more than
a block away. He and Ned waved good-bye and
then plunged into a noisy group of kids charging
around the playground like a pack of dogs.
The bell rang much too soon for Billy.
Everyone lined up along the fence by grade.
Mr. Tuttle, the principal, kept saying, "Welcome
back!" with a megaphone.
Billy and Ned pretended
they held megaphones
and yelled, "Welcome back to you!"
And then, at Mr. Tuttle's command, Billy's
line moved. Caught up in the motion, he
was pushed and pulled until he found himself
funneled into the old brick building and
entering Room 2 .]]
Ms. Silver had chopsticks in her hair. That
was the first thing Billy noticed about her.
Her wavy blond hair was coiled into a
bun and held in place with two shiny
red chopsticks. Billy's parents liked to
eat with chopsticks sometimes, but he
had never seen chopsticks on someone's head
before.
Without thinking, Billy whispered, "Chop,
chop" as he filed past her. Ms. Silver just]]
smiled at him, but then, she seemed to be
smiling at everyone, even Ned who asked,
"How many days of school until summer
vacation?"
There were six tables with four chairs
each arranged around the room. "Look for
the place with your name," said Ms. Silver.
"When you find your place, you may sit
down."
"Here's my seat," said Ned. He pulled out
his chair and plopped onto it. Then he patted
the tabletop next to him. "Sit here," he told
Billy.
It made sense that he would be next to
Ned. After all, they were neighbors and best
friends. Maybe Ms. Silver knew that they]]
were friends. Billy sat down without looking
at the name tag at his place.
Billy felt breath on the top of his head.
He turned around. Standing too close was
a girl he didn't recognize. Her eyes were
narrowed to slits, her arms were crossed, and
her fingers were drumming on her elbows at
a rapid-fire pace.
"Excuse me," she said. "You're sitting at
my place." She paused. "Unless your name is
Emma Sparks, too. Then we have a problem."
The girl stepped aside to let Billy get up. "If
your name is Billy Miller, you sit there," she
said, pointing. "If your name is Grace Cotter,
you sit there." She pointed again. "He must
be Ned Henderson," she continued, nodding.]]
And then she pointed once more, this time at
Billy. "I have a feeling you're Billy Miller."
Everything about the girl made it seem
to Billy that she should be, at least, a third
grader. She talked like an adult. She walked
like an adult. And she wore her sweater tied
around her waist, which for some reason
seemed very adult.
Billy shuffled around the table to his spot,
kitty-corner from Ned.
Grace Cotter slipped into her chair. Billy
had known Grace since kindergarten. She
was so shy she seemed almost invisible. Like
vacuums, her wide eyes were sucking in
everything.
When the four of them had settled into]]
their proper places, Emma Sparks smiled an
enormous smile. "My nickname's Emster,"
she told them. "You can call me Emster."
Billy misheard her. "Hamster?" he said
in a voice much too loud. "Your name is
Hamster?"
Everyone laughed. The laughter was pleasing
to Billy. It gave him a tingle. Whispers of
"Hamster" rippled throughout the classroom.
Emma glared at him. "I said Emster.
E-M-S-T-E-R."
All of a sudden, there was a noise like
a single, penetrating toll of a bell. The
laughter quieted. Silence, except for the
resonant sound.
Ms. Silver stood at the front of the]]
room beside her desk holding a little padded
hammer. There was a small bronze gong
at the corner of the desk.
"Thank you," she said in
a hushed tone. "Whenever
you hear the gong, it means
I'd like your attention."
Billy had never known a teacher with a
gong. It had worked like magic-the room
was noiseless, still.
Ms. Silver talked about herself for a while,
and Billy's mind wandered. The next thing
he knew, Ned was kicking him under the
table. "Say your name and something about
yourself," Ned whispered.
"I'm Billy Miller," Billy said. '':And I-"]]
He couldn't think of anything to say. "I'm in
second grade."
There were giggles. But the students
weren't giggling at Billy. They were giggling
because they thought what he'd said was
funny. A good, warm feeling came over him.
But not everyone thought he was funny.
Emma looked at him, rolled her eyes, and
said, "You are so dumb."
The good, warm feeling vanished.
Later, when the students were writing and
drawing in their new journals, Emma said to
Billy, "Maybe you should write that you're in
second grade so you don't forget."
Billy took two red markers from the]]
bin in the middle of the table. Using both
hands, he held up the markers on his head
as if they were the fiery horns of a devil.
Then he stared at Emma with the meanest
expression he could manage.
Ms. Silver happened to be walking by just
then. She stopped and looked at Billy for a
long moment.
Billy froze for a few seconds, then lowered
his hands and dropped the markers back into
the bin.
Ms. Silver raised one of her hands to her
chopsticks. She frowned. Then she smoothed
her hair and walked away. "Keep working,
everyone," she said.
"Oh no," Billy whispered. It dawned on]]
him. Ms. Silver thought he was making fun
of her. She thought that the two red markers
were meant to be her two red chopsticks.
She thought that the ugly face he'd made at
Emma was an imitation of her, Ms. Silver.
Billy didn't know what to do. What he
wanted to do was to run and run and run
around the playground. Running always
made him feel better. But he couldn't do that,
so, in his journal, he drew a picture of a hamster
and wrote: Hamsters smell bad.]]
Sal and the Drop Sisters were sitting in a
row on the front porch steps. "I'm waiting
for you," Sal called to Billy as he turned into
the yard.
"Well, here I am," said Billy. "You can stop
waiting."
Papa came around the house from the
garage carrying a battered cello with only
two strings. "Hi, Billy," he said.
"Hi, Papa."]]
"How was school?" asked Papa.
"Okay," said Billy.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"Give me one highlight from your day,"
said Papa.
Billy was used to Papa's probing, although
he didn't particularly like it. "There's a kid
named Hamster in my class," he said.
"Boy or girl?" asked Papa.
"Girl."
"Maybe her parents are celebrities," said
Papa. "They often give their kids unusual
names."
"Huh?" said Billy.
"Nothing," said Papa. "How is Ms. Silver?"]]
Billy shrugged. An image of Ms. Silver's
disappointed face rose up in his mind. He did
not want to talk about her, although he knew
his father would think that her chopsticks
were very interesting. "Can we not have any
more questions?" asked Billy.
"No more questions," said Papa.
Sal, who had been unusually silent, stood
with her hands on her hips, and said, "Your
school doesn't sound very fun. My school with
Papa was more fun. Look what I can do."
Sal bent over and grabbed a book from
a stack on the porch. "I can read Mama's
favorite book," she said. She held up a worn
paperback copy of Pride and Prejudice.
"You can't read that book," said Billy.]]
The book was definitely for adults.
"Yes, I can," said Sal.
"Watch. I know the words
a and I." She opened the
book to the first chapter.
Her finger scanned across
the lines and down the page. "A ... a ... a ...
a ... " She paused. "There's an I!" She flipped
the page. Now her finger darted around. "'A ...
I . . . a ... a . . ." She slapped the book shut
and beamed. "That was just two pages, but I
can even read in the hundreds." She opened
the book again, this time to page 223. "See,"
she sa1'd . ".I ...I .. a ..."
"That's not really reading," said Billy.
"Is so," said Sal. '"A is a word and J is]]
a word." She looked to Papa.
"Well," said Papa. "It is reading. In a way."
He wiggled his eyebrows at Billy. He was
still holding the dilapidated cello. He plucked
one of the two strings, making a dull, heavy
sound. "And this is making music." He
plucked again. "In a way."
Billy laughed.
"I found the cello today, among other treasures.
Come to the garage. I'll show you."
"Me, too," said Sal. She gathered the Drop
Sisters into her pillowcase. "I'm going to
teach the girls to read," Sal told Billy. "I'm
teaching Raindrop first. She's the smartest."
Billy followed Papa, and Sal followed Billy
into the garage.]]
Papa's treasures for the day included:
the cello, an old-fashioned telephone with a
dial and a long curly cord, a gnarled piece of
driftwood that looked like an elephant, and a
shiny silver garden ball on a cement pedestal.
"We went to the dump," said Sal.
Billy realized that if he'd spent the day
with Papa, he would have had more fun than
he did at school.
"Does any of this speak to
you?" Papa asked. He rotated the
driftwood in his hands, eyeing it
critically. '"Any ideas how your old
Papa can turn these lovely bits of
rummage into art?" He placed the
driftwood at his feet, then rubbed]]
the silver garden ornament as if it were a
crystal ball. "Let's look into the future ... "
said Papa.
Billy and Sal leaned closer.
"What do you see?" Papa asked, joking,
stroking his beard.
Billy didn't see the future, but if he could
have, he would have liked to see Emma move
to a different table at school, and he would
have liked Ms. Silver to let him know, somehow,
that she wasn't mad at him.
"I see me!" said Sal. She touched her nose
to the silver globe, then drew her face back
a bit. She repeated this movement several
times, mesmerized by her distorted reflection.
"I like the silver ball best," she said]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Vocabulary: Some difficult words

Language: Few descriptive words

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Concepts: Concrete/Simple Social

Table of Contents

Sequence of Events: Chronological

Features

Character traits

Character development

Topic

Teacher/Teaching

Fears

Learning

*Feelings, Behaviors

*Schools & Education

Performing

Low Frequency Words

according	beowulf	breakthrough	celebrities	cello
challenge	charging	constant	contents	cotter
critically	currently	descended	dewdrop	dilapidated
disappointed	distorted	drawn	driftwood	elementary
embarrass	embedded	emster	eyeing	fascinating
fashioned	fiery	flourish	fluffing	flushed
future	giggling	glared	glittery	gnarled
gotta	growth	grungy	gulp	gumdrop
habitats	henderson	highlight	hoisted	ignored
image	imitation	independent	instantly	invisible
journal	journals	kindergarten	laughter	lemony
lowered	manage	markers	megaphone	megaphones
mesmerized	minnesota	motion	motor	mount
movement	nation	nearing	neighbors	o'keeffe
objects	original	ornament	overheard	pace
paperback	paradise	particularly	paused	pedestal
penetrating	pleasing	plucked	plunged	plush
prejudice	preoccupied	public	quieted	raindrop
recognize	recognized	reflection	relatives	reread
resonant	revving	rippled	rotated	rowdy
rumbly	rummage	schoolmates	sculptures	shrugged
shuffled	silver's	smoothed	snowdrop	spouts
stating	statue	strides	sweater	tabletop
throughout	tingle	toll	tuttle	utterly
vacuums	wandered	wavy	whispers