Text Leveling System

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

RDQ:	338	Max Word/Sent	23	Total Words	421		Diff Words	230
Lex	570	Ave Word/.Sent	8	Hi Freq occurs	267	63.4%	Hi freq	97	42.2%
AR	2.3	Long Sentences	2.1	Low Freq occurs	23	5.5%	Low freq	20	8.7%

When summer began, I headed out West. My parents had told me I needed a rest.
Your imagination they said, is getting too wild. It will do you some good to relax for a while.]]
So they put me aboard a westbound train.]]
To visit aunt Fern in her house on the plains.]]
But I was captured by Cowboys, a wild looking crowd.
Their manners were rough and their voices were loud.]]
I'm trying to get to my aunt's house, I said.
But they carried me off to their cow camp instead.]]
The cattle boss growled as he told me to sit,
we need a new cowboy. Our old cowboy quit.
We could sure use your help. So what do you say?
I thought for a minute, then I told him, Okay.]]
Then I wrote to aunt Fern, so she'd know where I'd gone.
I said not to worry, I wouldn't be long.]]
That night I was given a new set of clothes.
Soon I looked like a Wrangler from my head to my toes. 
But there's more to a cowboy than boots and a hat, 
I found out the next day and the day after that.]]
Each day I discovered some new cowboy tricks.]]
From roping]]
and riding]]
to making fire with sticks.]]
Slowly the word spread all over the land:
that Wrangler kid bleff is a first rate cow hand.]]
The day finally came when the roundup was through.
Aunt Fern called: come on over. Bring your Cowboys with you.
She was cooking a barbecue that very same day.
So we cleaned up a little and we headed her way.]]
The food was delicious. There was plenty to eat.
And the band that was playing just couldn't be beat.]]
But suddenly I noticed a terrible sight.
The cattle were stirring and stamping with fright.
It's a scene I'll remember till my very last day.
They're gonna Stampede. I heard somebody say.]]
Just then they came charging. They charged right at me.
I looked for a hiding place a rock, or a tree.]]
What I found was a tablecloth spread out on the ground. 
So I turned like a matador and spun it around.
It was a new kind of cowboying, a fantastic display.
The cattle were frightened and stampeded away.]]
Then the Cowboys all cheered, bleff’s a true buckaroo.
He shook my hand and slapped my back, and aunt Fern hugged me too.]]
And that's how I spent my summer vacation.]]
I can hardly wait for show and tell.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Some support

Dialog: Simple

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Vocabulary: Few decoding/definition issues

Language: Few descriptive words

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Blend of written/oral

Features

Rhyming

Topic

Summer

Cowboys

Imagination

*Feelings, Behaviors

Low Frequency Words

aboard	bleff	bleff’s	buckaroo	charged
charging	cowboying	delicious	fern	gonna
imagination	matador	plains	rough	roundup
stampede	stampeded	stamping	stirring	tablecloth