Reading level 15: what it looks like and what to practise

Levels were renumbered on 27 October 2026: what was level 10 is now level 15.

What a level 15 story reads like

This is the start of The Truss, one of Peabody's own stories at level 15 (measured reading ease 10.0). The whole story is free to read, with no account.

Marisol Ybarra was going to win the county bridge contest, and she had already chosen the exact spot on her wall for the ribbon. The contest had three rules, which she had copied onto an index card and propped against the lamp on her desk.

The story teaches 5 words, each with a kid-sized meaning. A few: truss (triangle frame), rigid (stiff, unbending), span (stretch across) and diagonal (slanting).

Compared with level 14: the longest sentence goes from 62 to 62 words, a screen goes from 110–160 words to 120–175, and the share of words allowed off the familiar-word list goes from 20% to 21%.

What Peabody practises at level 15

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 15

The 18 open stories at level 15 include 13 retold classics and 7 spooky ones, marked as such. Their themes include classic, adventure, detective, england, london and mystery.

• The Man with the Twisted Lip
• The Three Musketeers
• The Blue Carbuncle
• The Death of Baldur
• The Call of the Wild
• Little Women

All level 15 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 14 · Level 16 · all levels and grades · the reading levels cheat sheet

Questions parents ask

Which children start at level 15?

No grade starts at level 15. 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 15 measured?

From the text, never from the child. The limits are a longest sentence of 62 words, 120 to 175 words a screen, a Flesch–Kincaid score of 9.5 to 10.5 and at most 21% 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.