10 Characteristics Used to

Determine Text Level

Characteristic Definition
1. Genres / Forms Genre: The type of fiction or nonfiction text
(biography, folk tale, fantasy, etc.)
Form: The particular form (mystery, picture
book, oral tale, graphic text, etc.)

2. Text Structure The way that the text is organized.

3. Content The subject matter of the text, what the text is

about, the topic, or ideas.

4. Themes & Ideas The big ideas in the text, the overall purpose,
or the authors message.

5. Language & Literary Features The literary features (plot, characters,

figurative language, literary devices.)

6. Sentence Complexity The structure of sentences includes the

number of phrases and clauses.

7. Vocabulary The meaning of the words in the text.

8. Words The length and complexity of the words

(syllables, tense, etc.)

9. Illustrations The photographs or artwork in fiction texts;

the graphic features in nonfiction.

10. Book & Print Features The number of pages, print font, length,
punctuation and variety of readers tools
(table of contents, glossary, etc.)
*Characteristics of Text Difficulty taken from article, Guided Reading, The Romance and the Reality ~Fountas & Pinnell

Jen Bradshaw AppleTreeLearning.blogspot.com