Reading level 16: what it looks like and what to practise

Levels were renumbered on 27 October 2026: what was level 11 is now level 16.

What a level 16 story reads like

This is the start of The Clock That Lost Time, one of Peabody's own stories at level 16 (measured reading ease 10.8). The whole story is free to read, with no account.

Felix had expected the summer at his great-uncle's house to be tranquil, and it was, except for the clocks, which never stopped telling him what time it was, each one disagreeing with all the others.

The story teaches 5 words, each with a kid-sized meaning. A few: pendulum (swinging weight), expands (grows bigger), stifling (airless and hot) and logbook (written record).

Compared with level 15: the longest sentence goes from 62 to 62 words, a screen goes from 120–175 words to 130–190, and the share of words allowed off the familiar-word list goes from 21% to 22%.

What Peabody practises at level 16

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 16

The 10 open stories at level 16 include 6 retold classics and 4 spooky ones, marked as such. Their themes include classic, greece, england, epic, family and myth.

• The Clock That Lost Time
• The Hound of the Baskervilles
• The Odyssey
• The Lost Stream
• Jason and the Golden Fleece
• The Bombardier Beetle

All level 16 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 15 · Level 17 · all levels and grades · the reading levels cheat sheet

Questions parents ask

Which children start at level 16?

No grade starts at level 16. 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 16 measured?

From the text, never from the child. The limits are a longest sentence of 62 words, 130 to 190 words a screen, a Flesch–Kincaid score of 10.5 to 11.5 and at most 22% 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.