About the Lexile Framework for Reading
The Lexile Framework for Reading is a scientifically proven approach to English reading and text measurement. A Lexile® measure is the numeric representation of a English language learner’s reading performance or a text’s difficulty, both followed by an “L” (for Lexile measure). The Lexile® scale is a developmental scale ranging from beginning reader measures below 0L to above 1600L for advanced text and performance.
The Lexile scale is independent. That means that the difficulty of books, articles, curriculum content, and other reading materials from any source can be evaluated with Lexile measures. Likewise, multiple reading assessments, including national assessments, can report a learner’s English reading performance in Lexile measures. The Lexile metric removes uncertainty by providing an objective measurement of text difficulty and reading levels.
Learners receive a Lexile measure after the administration of a test that is linked to the Lexile scale. The learner’s Lexile measure marks the level of English text he or she can read with 75 percent anticipated comprehension. This is the level at which the learner can successfully navigate the material with the use of context clues and other comprehension strategies to fill in the gaps. While there are multiple ways to measure fluency and the fundamental components of reading, the Lexile Framework for Reading is unique in that it measures the outcome of a reader’s skills and the learner’s overall reading comprehension of real-world text, not just fluency and vocabulary knowledge.
And because the comprehension rate can be adjusted based on level of challenge, the Lexile Framework is a perfect complementary tool for matching English language learners to texts and for monitoring their progress as they learn.
How Lexile Measures Benefit Ministries of Education
With Lexile measures, governments can enhance the value of English language assessments to stakeholders throughout the world. When educators can measure reading skills and personalise instruction on a common scale, it provides governments vast amounts of data to analyse the success of programmes, identify areas of need and communicate actionable information to stakeholders and constituents.
Lexile measures:
- Provide an interpretive framework for looking at assessment data.
- Connect national assessments to classroom instruction.
- Help governments meet their instructional improvement goals.
- Help governments across the world understand and measure what is happening in classrooms.
- Engage parents and learners in education.
- Evaluate learner assessment growth from a longitudinal perspective.
Benefits for Educators
For your educators, Lexile measures are much more than numbers. They are powerful, versatile tools that educators use to help their learners grow as English readers. When they use both Lexile learner measures and Lexile text measures, they can differentiate instruction for all learner levels.
For example, educators can:
- Connect learners with books that are at the right level to challenge learners but not overwhelm them, maximizing their reading growth.
- Help learners at all levels, whether they’re reluctant, struggling or high-achieving.
- Determine and adjust the readability of testing materials.
- Pre-teach vocabulary.
Ultimately, this enhances the value of national assessments to stakeholders throughout a ministry of education’s government and region.
Lexile measures are:
✓ A measure of English text difficulty and learner performance
✓ Complementary to qualitative schemes, like CEFR
✓ Scientific and objective
✓ Applied to English reading material
✓ For learners
Lexile measures are not:
☓ A measure of narrative complexity
☓ A measure of appropriate content
☓ An instructional programme