Zinc Levels and Level Placement

Getting Started with Zinc Level Placements

Zinc Level Placements help teachers track reading growth over time. These short assessments also allow Zinc to generate auto-leveled content for students. If a student hasn't had a recent assessment in Zinc, Zinc Journeys will start with a 10 to 20-minute Level Placement to create a positive, personalized learning experience. All students will receive a follow-up Level Placement after completing Ignition in Zinc Journeys. 

Teachers may choose to assign Level Placements directly to entire classes or specific students. Students may be assigned Level Placements when 45 days have passed since they've completed a Level Placement. 

Zinc Levels range from 1 to 8. To improve tracking of reading growth, Level Placements also track half levels. For examples, a student may earn a Level 3.5. See the chart below for explanations of Zinc Levels, including Lexile ranges. 

Once a student has taken their first Level Placement, future Level Placements will begin one level below their achieved Zinc Level. After this warm-up passage, students will take up their assessment from their current Level.

Quicklinks

How often can Level Placements be assigned?

Zinc Levels Explanation

Overview

With Zinc Level Placement, you can easily assess which Zinc difficulty level is ideal. Zinc Levels correspond to grade and Lexile levels.

The first time a student takes a Level Placement, the assessment will begin with a Level 1 passage. Future Level Placements will begin one level below their achieved Zinc Level.

A student's initial Level Placement includes 3 to 4 short passages with a total of 9 to 12 questions. On average, students take about 10 minutes to complete their first Level Placement. This adaptive Level Placement ends when students finish enough questions to determine their Zinc Level.

After the first Level Placement, follow-up Level Placements will start shortly before the student's current Zinc Level. These follow-up Level Placements are an excellent way to track growth throughout a student's time in your class. These follow-up Level Placements also end when the student's current level is determined.

Once students finish the Level Placement, they’ll be assigned a Zinc Level. Students can use this level as a baseline for growth, while also exploring easier and harder articles that interest them. Zinc Journeys presents material to students based on this level in Ignition and Missions.

How often can Level Placements be assigned?

Every student automatically receives one or two Level Placements as part of Zinc Journeys. Teachers may also assign Level Placements separately, but there is a waiting period between Level Placements to help maintain the accuracy of the assessment.

Teachers can assign a new Level Placement to a student when 45 days have passed since they last completed a Level Placement. This should allow you to check in on your students' levels 3 to 4 times each school year in addition to the initial Level Placement included in Zinc Journeys. You can keep track of when a new Level Placement can be assigned to each of your students in the Class Level Placement Report. If a student doesn't begin a Level Placement assignment for an entire month, the assignment will expire.

Please note: Zinc Journeys, Ignition, and Missions require a Level to provide content for students. If your students have taken a Level Placement in the past two years, Lift Off will use that Level. If not, they'll be assigned a new one. Ignition uses Levels from the last six months, and will begin with a new Level Placement if the student requires it. Ignition also ends with a Level Placement to measure a student's progress.

Assessment Format & Timing

As students take a Level Placement, they read passages on a variety of topics and answer two to three questions about each. The passages themselves are one to two paragraphs in length and fall into one of four categories: humanities, social science, science, or prose/literary narrative. Difficult vocabulary words or terms are defined within the passages (as one may see on a standardized test). As students progress further in a Level Placement, the passages increase in difficulty level.

A student's initial Level Placement is adaptive. Students will complete 3 or 4 passages, each with 3 questions. The average completion time is around 10 minutes, with the vast majority of students completing the assessment in under 20 minutes.

Follow-up Level Placements appear at the end of Ignition and you can assign them from the left navigation menu. These Level Placements will begin just below the students current level, and the assessment will end when the student's current level has been determined.

The questions on the Level Placement are multiple choice and assess a range of Zinc skills. Multiple choice questions offer four answer choices with one correct answer.

Like other Zinc activities, follow-up Level Placements also ask students to make a prediction before seeing the answers. (For the sake of keeping the first assessment as short as possible, the adaptive initial Level Placement does not include predictions.)

Zinc Levels Explanation

Difficulty levels are derived from approximate Lexile ranges and adjusted to follow Zinc editorial standards surrounding text complexity, target audience, and age-appropriateness.

Students may earn a half level, such as Level 3.5 or Level 5.5. Due to the overlapping nature of Lexile ranges, these half levels are not included in the chart below. Half levels allow for improved tracking of reading growth.

The recommended Zinc Level represents a student's independent reading level. Texts at that level should be accessible to the student, while also being engaging and appropriately challenging. Zinc Levels correspond to standard Lexile and grade-level reading targets.

How to Assign Zinc Level Placements

Students will automatically receive an adaptive Level Placement at the start of Zinc Journeys if they have not taken a recent Level Placement. All students will receive a short follow-up Level Placement following the Ignition step of Zinc Journeys to measure growth. 

To assign a Zinc Level Placement separately from Zinc Journeys, click "Level Pacements" under "A La Carte Activities" in the left navigation menu.

On the Level Placements page, you can click the Assignments tab to view past Level Placement assignments.

To create a new Level Placement assignment, select a class from the dropdown menu. 

Once you've , you will choose which students in the class should receive the assignment. If you want to assign Level Placements to the whole class, click the green "Whole Class" button, which will select every student in the class. If you would like to assign to one or more specific students, click the checkbox to the left of their name. Once you've selected your students, click the green "Assign" button. The assignment will appear on each student's Zinc homepage.

Please note that if a student has an active Level Placement or has taken one recently, then you will not be able to click the checkbox to the left of their name, and they will not be selected if you click the "Whole Class" button. Please ask them to complete the assignment on their dashboard. You will see their results with the rest of the class on your Zinc Journeys and Level Placement reports.

Level Placements may not be assigned a Level Placement if one has been completed within the previous 45 days. For these students, check the "Next Level Placement available on" column on the "Choose Students" page to see when they can next be assigned a Level Placement.

Level Placement assignments expire one month after being assigned. Once an assignment has expired, the student will no longer be able to complete it outside of Zinc Journeys. Once a Level Placement has expired, you can reassign it to a student if they have not completed a recent Level Placement elsewhere. 

Please remember, each student's Zinc Journey automatically includes Level Placements. While you can assign Level Placements, it is often unnecessary if your students are working through Zinc Journeys.

Expiration of Level Placement Assignments

If a student does not complete a Level Placement assigned on its own, the assignment will expire after a month has passed. Level Placements assigned as part of Zinc Journeys will not expire because Zinc Journeys assignments do not expire.

As the teacher, you will still have a record of any incomplete expired assignments, but they will no longer be visible to students on their homepage.

Helping Students Find Their Level Placement

Students automatically receive Level Placements during Zinc Journeys. If a Level Placement is required, it will be the first activity in their Zinc Journeys window following the short reader survey. The Zinc Journeys window will always be present on their Zinc homepage. 

When assigned a Level Placement separately by their teacher, students will receive a notification on their Zinc Dashboard. The Level Placement will also appear under the Zinc Journeys window in a student's "My Assignments" list. The student only needs to click "Start Assignment" or "Continue Assignment" to reach the Level Placement.

Tracking Progress with Reports

You can track individual and student progress on their Level Placements using the Zinc Journeys Class Report on your homepage. The Level Placements tab will show results for each student's most recent Level Placement. You can also expand results to see past assessment results.

You may also view a class's Level Placement results through an Activity Progress Report. Click "Class/Student Reports" under "Reports" in the left navigation menu. If you're signed into Zinc, here's a direct link to your Reports page. On the Reports page under Class Reports, select a class and activity from the dropdown menus beneath Activity Progress report. Click "Generate Report" to view the report. 

Level Placement Resets

If you feel a student should retake a Level Placement, please contact Zinc Support by clicking the support chat at the bottom-right of your screen. Please provide the name of the student who needs their Level Placement reset. A reset provides the student with a fresh Level Placement assignment that they will see on their Zinc Dashboard.