Yeah, this is pretty common. I used to work for a major K12 vendor (in over 1/3 of all schools in the US) and I heard about this practice all the time from different customers (e.g., schools and districts). Sometimes it's locked by grade level (concern about kids reading material with themes that are "too mature") and sometimes it's locked by reading level (poor understanding of how leveled reading works). It shouldn't be implemented this way, but that doesn't stop plenty of schools from doing exactly that.

I think you are in an area with a lot more resources. We are a title 1 school and I’m pretty sure a lot of the parents aren’t actually literate.

My school in a different state was like then when I was growing up. I actually “failed” reading because I read everything in the library and they didn’t have anything else. Reading at home didn’t count. My spouse went to several schools in multiple states and they all had rules about which books you could check out when.

I’m actually surprised this is so surprising to so many people. These smaller school districts just don’t have the resources to keep track of which kid is reading at which level.

To be very fair to our staff, I have one child who is way, way above their expected reading level and the staff occasionally helps them “sneak” books. They are doing the best they can, and I’m in a situation to supplement reading at home.

But in all the areas I’ve lived in, there have been massive hoops to get through with reading. These are our current struggles, but some have been kind of insurmountable. I had one library that kept charging us for ruining books we had never even laid eyes on. Like we wouldn’t go for a month and get a fine for ruining a kids book when we didn’t have kids. Mostly I just wanted to highlight that sometimes just getting something to read can be really hard.

My sister was an incredible reader and had a fourth grade teacher who did this. My mom pestered him asking if her reading level could be tested so that she could check out books that were more challenging. He finally agreed and she tested at 12th grade level.

His argument then became, "Just because she can understand the text, doesn't mean she can understand the theme. So, she needs to stick to the fourth grade reading level."

No compromise. No flexibility. No interest.

You can guess how many books she borrowed from the library that year.

Oh wow ! What a flashback. I remember AR ! I feel on the spines, there would be a grade or something. I also learned quite early ( my mom read to me from a young age and I wanted to do it on my own during insomnia bouts) but i do not feel we weren’t allowed to read above. And if the school restricted me, my parents never would. I remember vividly , Sorcerer’s Stone being my first large chapter book , getting it right when it came out.

After absorbing the Roald Dahls and such. I think a key part missing, and there are studies to back this, is parents reading to the child from 0-3.

>Obviously all the symbolic and thematic content flew over my head, but I don’t remember ever having a problem actually reading it.

And that's OK, because after that first pass, you probably understood it better the next time you encountered it.

I’ve been kind of keeping an eye out and all the big libraries that have done something similar have had restrictions on the deal that weren’t initially reported. I don’t remember all of them, but an example would be the New York Library had a headline about it that anyone could check out books, but when you read the fine print it was only certain banned books on their list. Lots of stuff like that.

Let’s assume I really live in the middle of nowhere haha. The “big” libraries near me are super uptight about it.

For Texans who might be reading this, Houston digital library is available to all in-state residents.

Now that I have outed myself as a teacher, I just want to add that MANY of us do NOT believe in only letting kids check out certain “level” books!!! That is an absolute travesty.