About the Lexile Framework for Reading
The Lexile Framework for Reading is a scientifically proven approach to reading and text measurement. A Lexile® measure is the numeric representation of a reader’s ability 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 abilities.
The Lexile scale is independent. That means that the difficulty of books, articles and other reading materials from any source can be evaluated with Lexile measures. Likewise, multiple reading assessments can report student reading ability in Lexile measures. The Lexile metric removes uncertainty by providing a scientific measure of text difficulty and student reading ability.
Lexile measures are:
✓ A measure of text difficulty and reader ability
✓ Scientific and objective
✓ Applied to reading material
✓ For students
✓ Complementary to other book levelling systems based on criteria that require qualitative judgements e.g. Book Bands
Lexile measures are not:
☓ A measure of narrative complexity
☓ A measure of appropriate content
☓ An instructional programme