05/05/2004

The PM philosophy and levelling system is consistent through all the resources in the entire PM Family

PM Philosophy

The philosophy that underpins all the material in the PM Family is that:

• students to learn to read well if they are encouraged to use a variety of skills, processes and behaviours, rather than a particular method or approach
• when students are learning to read, they should be given materials that have been carefully crafted to meet their needs; books that give them, from their earliest experiences with the printed word, success, enjoyment, and understanding

PM Levelling

All PM books are levelled using the same, simple numerical sequence (and associated colour bands) with fine gradations from levels 1-30. Levelling depends, after PM Level 2, on more than a dozen factors, including:

• children’s conceptual understandings
• traditional story structure
• meaning (paying attention to clarity, logic, cause and effect, factual accuracy)
• choice of appropriate sentence structures
• prose that flows easily
• steady introduction and reinforcement of high frequency words
• low ration of unknown to known words
• repetition of grapho-phonic forms in meaningful context
• clarity of layout and typography
• amont of text on a page
• length of the book
• supportive illustrations