Should I Care About Lexiles and the Levels of Reading Material in My Classroom?
Should I Care About Lexiles and the Levels of Reading Material in My Classroom?
Any teacher of literacy is going to come across this type of debate of reading levels and Lexile in their classroom and throughout their school buildings. To get right to the point: Should we, as teachers, be paying attention to the levels of reading that our students are at in terms of ability and demonstrated skill level? The answer is complicated. As a middle school teacher for over a decade, my students would enter the sixth grade at a variety of levels of reading ability and skill. This was due to a variety of factors, including tracking of students in elementary schools. The debate among educators is vast regarding reading levels and Lexile, whether or not your building has a particular strategic reading program or not. Here are some of the opinions about reading levels so you can get the gist of what everyone is talking about:
Students should be able to read any book they want. They shouldn’t be restricted to choosing books within their “range.”
Students should be limited to choosing books within their “range” because they can practice their demonstrated skillset. They can expand their selection with practice and skill acquisition.
Students shouldn’t be told their reading levels or Lexile.
Students should know their reading level. They are included in the process of helping them catch up.
Teachers need to scaffold instruction with a variety of reading materials to reach students on their levels.
Teachers need to expose their students to grade-level material to expose them to content at their grade level.
Classroom libraries should not have publicly displayed Lexile or reading levels on books. Students should be able to choose their books.
Classroom libraries need to be organized with a reading level in mind. Students should know what level of book they are holding in their hands to see if they can access the material.
Programs like accelerated reader that give comprehension assessments are able to accurately show student knowledge.
Canned programs are not able to demonstrate student understanding because it is simply measuring the student’s ability to take a test.
There are even more viewpoints listed than the ones above. Everyone seems to have the right answer, while this post will contain my own personal opinions, it also serves as a starting point. This post is an invitation to conversation and reflection on the current practices in your classroom. As a curriculum consultant, I often will label materials with the Lexile or reading level information because it provides a means of information. Each teacher has their own opinion regarding Lexile or reading levels. In order to fully engage the conversation, educators need to understand what Lexile and reading levels are, how strategic reading classes are typically run, resources for reading level differentiation, and recommendations for selecting reading materials for your classroom.
What are Lexiles and Reading Levels?
Lexile: a specific measurement used to gauge reading level or ability, see Understanding Lexile Meaures.
A Lexile is contained in a range of numbers from 0-2000. It measures the reader’s ability level to interact with and understand a selection of texts. All reading materials have a Lexile assigned to them. Often, you just have to Google the information to find the number.
Source: https://lexile.com/educators/understanding-lexile-measures/
0-400 is often classified as BR or beginning reader. The numbers are also used to help guide students in choosing materials. “Materials are in your student's reading comprehension “sweet spot“ when they are 100L below to 50L above their reported Lexile reading measure” (Lexile.com)
So, what do the numbers mean to the everyday teacher?
Source: https://lexile.com/educators/measuring-growth-with-lexile/college-and-career-readiness/
Each number corresponds to a grade level of reading. Therefore, you can measure where students are in the classroom and this informs instruction. If most of your students are reading below grade level, you may not want to start with materials that are much higher than the grade level Lexile.
Let’s consider some student examples for clarification.
Student A is in the 6th grade and reads at a Lexile of 380. They are in the sixth grade and are at a BR or beginning reading level.
Student B is in the 6th grade and reads at a Lexile of 1000. They are in the sixth grade and read at a beginning of the year 8th-grade level.
The argument surrounding knowing the Lexle or reading level of a student is based on the appropriateness of reading material and the perception of access the student has to understand the material in both terms of fluency and comprehension. Then, teachers enter the conversation when they are choosing materials to use in their classrooms. Many online resources offer different “leveled” reading materials; however, this is another task for teachers to factor in when it comes to lesson plan design and implementation.
Some buildings and districts also have specific reading intervention classes. Traditionally, strategic reading classes are seen as elective courses. These classes could follow a specific program or curriculum that revisits beginning reading skills to help students “catch up” on their reading ability. Often, these elective courses can take the place of another elective like music or art, and then another debate enters into the equation about “double-blocking” or multiplying the exposure to literacy strategies and skills in one student’s given school day.
Resources for Reading Level Differentiation
If a teacher chooses to differentiate or scaffold their reading instruction, there are a variety of resources and practices available in case they want to put different Lexile or leveled materials in their classrooms.
Get Epic Reading
An online platform for reading materials that has high-interest and graphic novel texts for readers of all ages. It connects to Google Classroom, teachers can assign text sets, and often, there is an informational resource available that can help students access material that may be in curriculum guides at a higher level.
NewsELA
An online platform for informational materials and news articles for kids. They often Lexile or level all articles for kids in 3-4 different ways. One article may be available in 1000L, and it also is available in 400L. This can make the informational material more accessible for students.
CommonLit
An online platform with a huge library of both fiction and nonfiction texts that can be used to address themes, smaller target lessons, and pair with longer books. Materials are organized by Lexile, so the individual material does not adjust to reading level. However, they also have read-aloud functions and additional resources to help access materials.
Focusing Instruction
One of the best questions to ask a group of educators is:
“Do you teach to the bottom, the middle, or the top of your class?”
Answers will vary. Some will say that they teach to all levels which are really difficult to accomplish when doing whole-group instruction. Some say the middle so they get everybody near their level. Some say the top and then they help the bottom and middle students along the way.
What is your answer to this question?
Some reflection questions to focus on reading levels and materials in your instruction:
What are the current levels of the reading materials I am putting in front of students?
Where are my students in terms of their ability level or Lexile?
Can my students easily access the material after instruction?
How do I know my students understand what I am teaching?
What formative assessments am I using to assess whether or not they are understanding the lesson or materials?
What do I do as a teacher when I realize they aren’t getting it or struggling?
Selecting Reading Material
I want to give an example of selecting reading materials for students and offering a variety of reading levels with instruction.
One of my favorite ways to do homework was Kelly Gallagher’s Article of the Week. I walk through the entire process of this assignment in my post, “How to Complete an Article of the Week!” The gist of the assignment without reading the blog post is that students read an informational article each week, practice interacting with the text through annotation and discussion, and then complete a corresponding activity with the article. Because this is a homework assignment, students needed to be able to complete the activity with a reasonable expectation of independence. Homework implies it is independent practice because no teacher is available during that time.
If you have emergent or pre-emergent readers in the secondary classroom, this can get tricky.
The solution to this was to provide 3 different levels of articles for students. Online platforms like NewsELA have made it easier to assign articles to students through Google Classroom, but you could also be friends with the copier and make different articles available for students. Then, when handing out our articles, you can walk around with folders and hand them out to students without them knowing which folder you are pulling from.
