Just looking at a book isn't enough to determine its readability because books that seem pretty different sometimes score at the same level. For example,Sarah, Plain, and Tall(MacLachlan, 2004),Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing(Blume, 2007),Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery(Howe & Howe, 2006), andThe Hundred Penny Box(Mathis, 2006) are four novels that score at the third-grade reading level according to Fry's Readability Graph, even though their topics, use of illustrations, font sizes, and page length differ significantly.

Choose four books used at the 4th-grade level and examine them. Consider the topics, vocabulary, and illustrations, and look at page layouts, the text's location, the font choice, and the book's length. Before scoring the books, ask yourself whether you expect they'll rank at the same or similar levels. Then evaluate each book's readability level using Fry's Readability Graph or another assessment tool. Do they score at the same grade level? Why or why not?