About Lexile® Measures for Reading
The Lexile® Framework for Reading is a scientific approach to measuring both reading ability and the text complexity of reading materials on the same developmental scale. The Lexile Framework matches readers with text that gives them the right level of challenge. More than 30 years of research, scientific validation and countless success stories have made Lexile measures the most widely used reading metric in the world.
The Lexile Infographic
Everything you need to know about the Lexile Framework in one easy to understand, printer-friendly resource.
Students receive Lexile reader measures through their school’s preferred assessment or reading program and/or state assessment. A Lexile reader measure is a measure of a student’s reading ability. More than 65 popular reading assessments and products, including 25 state assessments, report student reading ability as a Lexile measure — and that number is growing every day.
Reading content also receives Lexile text measures, making it easy for educators to personalize learning. A Lexile text measure is a measure of the text complexity for a book or piece of text.
The Lexile® scale ranges from below 0L for beginning readers and early-reading text to above 2000L for advanced readers and text.
Other reading level formulas just measure text.
It’s like shopping for shoes and only knowing the sizes available. You need to know both the size of the shoe and the person’s foot to have a good fit. When Lexile reader and text measures are used together, we can predict how well a student will likely comprehend the text. A student should look for materials with a reading comprehension “sweet spot” of 100L below to 50L above his or her reported Lexile measure. Reading materials in this range will provide an ideal level of challenge while maintaining comprehension.
Most Widely Used Reading Measure in the World
Lexile measures are the gold standard for matching readers to texts and tracking student growth towards college and career readiness. Lexile measures are:
- Ubiquitous. More than 35 million students in all 50 U.S. states, plus students in 180 countries around the world, receive Lexile measures. Then, there’s the content. More than 100 million books, articles and websites have received Lexile measures, allowing teachers and students to easily identify appropriate text.
- Actionable. A Lexile measure is much more than a number on a page. It’s used to help teachers identify areas for student growth, easily develop a plan to help students build reading skills and track progress day-to-day or year-to-year.
- Personalized. Lexile measures give education companies a competitive edge for their products by providing educators and students the ability to personalize learning.