
Written by Rebecca Dove
November 15, 2021, assessments.

Lexile is a measurement tool with a leveling system that matches test scores to books.
Lexile and fountas & pinnell level books but are different systems., lexile analyzes text, has a range for books, includes vocabulary lists, and has extensive research..
Lexile is a measurement tool created by psychologists, researchers, and scientists from MetaMetrics . They take a scientific approach to help with education. Lexile was created to help educators, parents, researchers, and other practitioners with reading material. Additional information Here
MetaMetrics states that 90% of standardized K-12 assessments use Lexile scores.
A Lexile Measure “i sn’t a simple score or grade. It is a tool to help you and your child find reading materials to match and challenge their abilities.”
Lexile works with companies so companies can use Lexile’s scoring, ranges, and recommendations.
Here is what makes their product unique
- Scientific use test scores to connect them to books using their scaling system. It is grounded on a psychometric system, a field of psychology specializing in testing, measurement, assessment, and relative knowledge. These researchers use data, create experiments, write reports, share tested theories of change, and more.
- The range uses a numerical number with the corresponding letter “L.” The scale or range matches books to a child’s development and knowledge at that time.
- Vocabulary has created customized lists, similar to sight words. However, these vocabulary words are common vocabulary words that can assist a child academically.
- Fountas & Pinnel is another leveling system that levels books for small group reading. If you need to learn about the differences between F&P and Lexile you can find here .
Leveling books has benefits, but there are also consequences to leveling as well. If one is too caught up on reading for leveling then what is their objective for reading. It is best to find that balance between leveling and not.
Read2Think is proud to integrate Lexile into our system. Parents, educators, and non-profit directors will be able to view which stories that a child reads have a Lexile score corresponding to it.
To sign up for Read2Think visit: read2think.com
Read2Think is a web application to help parents, educators, and students to discover a child’s reading challenge. Our software applies machine learning and humans to assess how children read. Visit our homepage to sign up or learn more.
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What is the difference between Lexile and guided reading levels?
Table of contents:, what is the guided reading level scale, what level should guided reading books be, how do i find my lexile level, what is a 550 lexile, what is a good lexile score, what is the lexile level of harry potter, what lexile is 12th grade, what is the lexile level of to kill a mockingbird, what is a good lexile score for 7th grade, what does level c mean in iready reading, should a 7 year old read harry potter, what reading level is percy jackson, what is the highest lexile score ever.
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Reading Levels and Lexile Scores
As children learn to read, it is important to provide them with optimally challenging reading material. Books that are too hard will cause a child to give up because they can’t read the words or understand the sentences. Give a child a book that is too easy, on the other hand, and you risk losing their interest in the reading task.
So, how do you pick books that are neither too hard nor too easy for your child to read?
Determining a Book’s Reading Level
Over the years, different researchers have come up with different ways to measure reading levels for books. While each readability method is unique, they each come down to a mathematical modeling of the words and sentence structure used within text.
Some of the most popular reading level measurements are listed below.
- Guided Reading Levels : Assess ten characteristics of a book, including its genre, text structure, content, theme, language & literary features, sentence complexity, vocabulary, number & difficulty of words, illustrations, and print features. (Also known as the Fountas & Pinnell method.)
- Lexile Framework for Reading : Analyzes and compares the semantic and syntactic complexities within a text. Lower scores indicate easier reading material.
- Fry Reading Formula : Takes the average number of sentences and syllables for every 100 words and plots that data onto a graph.
- Flesch-Kincaid Index : Uses a formula that multiplies the average number of words in a sentence and the average number of syllable in each word by specific constants to come up with a reading level.
Determining a Child’s Reading Level
Not every child reads at a level that matches their grade placement. While there are many different formal and informal assessments that can be used to identify a child’s reading level, these are the most common ones used in schools.
- Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) : Assesses a child’s reading abilities through 1:1 testing to identify their reading level.
- i-Ready Assessment : Measures a student’s general reading and reading comprehension ability through an online diagnostic-prescriptive method.
Matching Reading Levels
Use the chart below to match your child’s grade level or assessed reading ability to Guided Reading Levels or Lexile Scores.
You’ll notice that some scores have quite a range across each grade level. That’s because a child’s reading ability grows and changes throughout a school year. If you’re looking at this chart in September or October, your child will likely be at the lower end of a reading ability scale for their specific grade level. If you’re looking at the chart in May or June, their reading level should be at the higher end of the scale.
It is also important to keep in mind that individual children have a range of reading abilities. Some children entering kindergarten may already be independent readers. These kindergartners may be able to easily read books with a Lexile score of 150 to 300 or a Guided Reading Level of D or E in September.
Rather than worry that a child is not further along in their reading ability, parents should focus on tracking whether or not their child’s reading ability continues to grow throughout a year. Whether your child is continuing to learn basic phonics OR they are receiving tutoring help for a learning disability, incremental growth is most important to helping the child gain the skills they need to become the best reader possible.
Check out our book finder guide for matching reading levels to specific books .

Last modified on May 27, 2020
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Book Finder For Reading Levels
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Lexile Levels
The lexile® framework for reading was developed in 1989 with grant funding from the national institutes of health for the purpose of creating a better measurement system for reading and writing., a. j. stenner, ph.d., and malbert smith iii, ph.d., spent over twelve years creating a scientific approach to reading and text measurement for the purpose of connecting readers to reading material at their ability level using a common measure. their work resulted in two lexile measures: the lexile reader measure and the lexile text measure. learn more about the importance of early literacy from our other resources on the subject., a lexile reader measure represents a person’s reading ability on the lexile scale which ranges from br-0 (beginning reader) to 2000 (above 12.9 grade level) followed by an l for lexile. a lexile reader measure is usually obtained by having the reader take a test of reading comprehension., this lexile measure is then used to find ability-appropriate books and other reading material based on the “lexile range” which is 50l above to 100l below a person’s lexile measure. for example, a student who has a lexile score of 550l would typically read books within a lexile range between 450l and 600l..

A Lexile text measure, like a Lexile reader measure, is reported on the same Lexile scale. Unlike the reader measure, however, all text measures below 0 on the Lexile scale are reported as BR (Beginning Reader). The lower a book’s Lexile measure, the easier it will be to comprehend. Text difficulty is based on word frequency and sentence length. A Lexile measure by itself may not be enough information to choose a particular book for a particular reader. This is why some books have Lexile codes that are two-letter designations that appear before the Lexile measure (for example, GN580L where GN stands for Graphic Novel). These codes help to understand the book’s common or intended usage.
T he value of using the lexile reader and text measures together is that they can predict how well a reader will likely comprehend a text at a specific lexile level. a reader who has a lexile measure of 1000l is forecasted to comprehend approximately 75 percent of a book with the same lexile text measure (1000l)., the comprehension rate is called “targeted” reading and is based on text that can be read independently by the reader. this target reading rate is designed to allow the reader to comprehend text without too much difficulty, but also to prevent boredom by providing some reading challenge. students who are able to read text at their targeted comprehension rate are more likely to have a rewarding reading experience., o ver 250,000 books, as well as millions of articles and websites, have been measured and assigned lexile levels. this makes it possible for teachers to use lexile measures to customize instruction by providing reading passages, books, and other instructional materials that are matched to the reading levels of the students in their class. another key feature for educators is the lexile text analyzer that will measure the complexity, or readability, of text., f or example, a teacher may want to assign an article but is unsure if the reading level is too difficult for her students. the teacher types or scans a portion of the article into the text analyzer, a software program that evaluates the reading demand, and the passage is broken down and studied., the outcome is the text complexity, expressed as a lexile measure, along with information on the word count, mean sentence length, and mean log frequency. the teacher can then use this information to differentiate by providing several articles of varying text complexity so that all students are able to access the material at their reading level., a nother text measure, added in 2012, is the common core state standards (ccss) text measures. these measures were based on metametrics "collective research on text complexity and the reading demands of college, careers and life in general." the ccss text measures provide a wider lexile range with a higher text measure at each grade level designed to ensure that students graduate from high school “college and career ready”., l ibrarians find lexile levels extremely helpful in supporting teachers and students by connecting readers with books based on level and interest. there are two key ways to find ability-appropriate books. the first is by searching for books based on lexile level, if known. the lexile titles database is able to generate lists of books in the reader’s lexile range based on interest in one or more of 28 categories that include mystery, nature, animals, and graphic novels and comics., t he second way to determine the lexile level of a book is by doing a quick book search for a book that the student is able to read independently. once the lexile level for an ability-appropriate book is identified, a list of other books at the same text measure can be generated. parents can also use these same features at home to ensure that their child is selecting books in their reading “safety zone”., t he lexile reader and text measures are valuable tools that can be used in classrooms for academic content and in and out of the classroom for independent reading. millions of resources that have been measured using a consistent scale assist teachers, librarians, and parents in matching ability-appropriate material to readers., r eading horizons has partnered with metametrics® to develop lexile® reading level assessments for reading horizons discovery and elevate software. the reading library assessment is powered by the lexile® framework for reading and was created to identify and monitor each student’s lexile measure within the software., key features.
- The Reading Library Assessment provides an initial Lexile measure to serve as a benchmark for gauging student progress. The assessment is given periodically throughout the course of software instruction to show reading improvement.
- The initial Reading Library Assessment unlocks Lexile-leveled reading passages in the software that match a student’s reading level.
- The Lexile measure can be used to help students find external reading material that matches their reading ability.

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Lexile is a measurement tool with a leveling system that matches test scores to books. Lexile was created to help educators, parents, researchers, and other practitioners with reading material
View a book's most challenging words View and print student Lexile measures by grade level. Access various reading and math resources and educational tools related to Lexile and Quantile levels for teachers and parents
The Lexile Analyzer® in the Lexile® & Quantile® Hub allows educators to paste or type in text to receive a Lexile range
Guided Reading Levels are more complex than Lexile Scores. A Lexile score measures a book's difficulty level on a scale from low to high. is the target Lexile measure for students to be ready for college and career in reading
This is a chart the correlates DRA, Fountas & Pinnell, Reading A to Z, and Lexile reading levels for grade K-5. FREEBIE: Enjoy this printable list of books, sorted by Fountas & Pinnell and Lexile reading levels
Easy to read chart that matches your child's reading level to Lexile scores and Guided Reading Levels to help you find the best books to read
The Lexile® Framework for Reading was developed in 1989 with grant funding from the National Institutes of Health for the purpose of creating a better measurement system for reading and writing