This paper investigates the validity of two current approaches for estimating text difficulty at the first-grade level--the Scale for Text Accessibility and Support-Grade 1 (STAS-1) and the Fountas/ Pinnell system--and analyzed student performance in relation to each. Subjects, 105 first graders in two schools, used "little books"--easy to read tiny paperbacks that serve as leveled practice materials for beginning readers. The schools are located in an urban area, 90% Latino, low-income, and with 95% of the students qualifying for subsidized school meals. The children were tested and placed into high, middle, and low ability-based reading groups. Each child was assigned a text set to read under either a preview, modeled, or sight reading condition, and their performance was evaluated for accuracy, rate, and fluency. Results indicated that the text leveling procedures these systems employed were largely accurate. Their analysis even suggested potential benchmarks for first-grade performance: 95% accuracy, 80 words per minute, and a fluency level of 3 (on a scale of 1-5) with reading material of mid-first-grade difficulty. More research is needed to determine whether these figures hold for the larger public. Lastly, results indicated that the modeled reading condition seemed particularly supportive of children's subsequent independent reading at any level. (Contains 13 tables of data and 18 references.) (RS)