The Relationship Between Lexile Text Measures and Early Grades Fountas & Pinnell Reading Levels - MetaMetrics Inc.
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The Relationship Between Lexile Text Measures and Early Grades Fountas & Pinnell Reading Levels

Resource Type:
Research Brief
Resource Tags:
Early Reading
Lexile

By Heather Koons, Ph.D., Jeff Elmore, Eleanor Sanford-Moore, Ph.D., and Alfred Jackson Stenner, V on

Abstract

This research brief discusses the relationship between two popular text leveling systems, The Lexile® Framework for Reading and Fountas & Pinnell (F&P) reading levels. MetaMetrics examined the Lexile measures and F&P reading levels assigned to a set of early-reading texts. F&P reading levels assign letter labels from A through Z+ to indicate text difficulty. Lexile measures assign a numeric value (for example, 120L) from below 0L for beginning reader text to above 2000L for advanced text. A positive correlation was found between the Lexile measures and F&P reading levels for early-reading books. Overall, as the F&P reading levels progress to indicate more challenge, the Lexile measures of the books also increase. This study’s strong correlation suggests that in general, the Lexile Framework and F&P reading levels describe a text’s complexity similarly. Read the research brief to learn more about this study’s methodology, analysis and full conclusion. The research brief also explores variability within leveling systems using book examples.