Reading level 14: what it looks like and what to practise

Levels were renumbered on 27 October 2026: what was level 9 is now level 14.

What a level 14 story reads like

This is the start of A Practical Lamp, Not a First One, one of Peabody's own stories at level 14 (measured reading ease 8.7). The whole story is free to read, with no account.

Who invented the light bulb? The question has a confident answer, Thomas Edison, and the answer hides a problem. The word invented covers three separate claims: being the first to make a thread glow, making a lamp that lasts, and making one that can be sold and wired into a city.

The story teaches 6 words, each with a kid-sized meaning. A few: incandescent (glowing from heat), filament (glowing thread), carbonized (turned to carbon) and vacuum (space without air).

Compared with level 13: the longest sentence goes from 62 to 62 words, a screen goes from 100–145 words to 110–160, and the share of words allowed off the familiar-word list goes from 19% to 20%.

What Peabody practises at level 14

At this level the practice brain works on vocabulary and spelling. The skills it holds, in the order it teaches them:

A word a child gets right is done for good and is not asked again, so practice moves on rather than looping. The sight-word lists are pre-primer (40), primer (52), first grade (41), second grade (46) and third grade (41). The full phonics scope and sequence is a free guide.

Free games that practise these skills

Every game below asks questions from the same practice brain, as three big boxes to tap, with no typing. They start from a child's grade, not their reading level, so a game's questions fit the grade they pick.

Two word games sit outside the learning list: .

The arcade also has two action games with cartoon violence, Sniper and Doomcrawl. We leave them off these lists on purpose; every game is on the games page.

Free stories at level 14

The 21 open stories at level 14 include 12 retold classics and 9 spooky ones, marked as such. Their themes include nonfiction, classic, science, history, animals and christmas.

• Vasilisa the Brave
• A Practical Lamp, Not a First One
• The Pigeon Post
• Theseus and the Minotaur
• Built for Puddles, Bred for Beauty
• The Gift of the Magi

All level 14 stories are free to read without an account. Each ends with questions of a few kinds: inference, literal and word-in-context.

Other levels

Level 13 · Level 15 · all levels and grades · the reading levels cheat sheet

Questions parents ask

Which children start at level 14?

No grade starts at level 14. Peabody starts a child a little under their grade, so a reader reaches this level by reading up from below as books run easy.

How is level 14 measured?

From the text, never from the child. The limits are a longest sentence of 62 words, 110 to 160 words a screen, a Flesch–Kincaid score of 8.5 to 9.5 and at most 20% of words off the Dale–Chall list.

Is it free?

Yes, free through the end of 2026, with no sign-up. Peabody is a reading app, not an assessment: it cannot hear a child read, so a teacher is the one to ask about fluency.