The Use of Reading Levels as Alternative Classification in School Libraries

A relatively new phenomenon in school libraries is the organization of books by the reading levels associated with reading incentive programs such as Accelerated Reader and Reading Counts. There is a body of research on the effects of reading incentive programs on variables related to reading ability and motivation, but currently there is no research on the characteristics of the school libraries that use reading levels as an alternative classification scheme for shelf arrangement. This article reports the results of a survey of P-12 media specialists in Kentucky who identified their libraries as arranged by reading level. Analysis of results provides information on the demographic characteristics of these libraries and media specialists’ rationale for organizing their library collections in this way.