What is a Lexile Score?
A Lexile score is a standard score that matches a student’s reading ability with the difficulty of the reading material.
When reader's score and that of the reading material are the same, the student is expected to read with 75% comprehension – difficult enough to be challenging without undue frustration and to encourage reading progress.
Scores range from 200 to 1700.
Lexile measures are a measure of text difficulty. They do not address age-appropriateness, student interest, or the quality of the text.
- Lexile Framework for Reading InformationLink to the Lexile site.
Reading a Lexile Score
Sample Lexile Texts
- Examples of Reading LevelsThis Lexile map shows texts matched to levels of reading ability. The literature titles and reading selections are examples that range from 200L to 1700L on the Lexile scale.
Library Databases That Use Lexile Scores
In many of the library's online databases, it is possible to select articles within a Lexile range. Use the "advanced search" option.
- In Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window Opposing Viewpoints offers material to support differing views to help develop critical thinking skills on thousands of current social topics in the forms of primary source documents, statistics, websites and multimedia. Find overviews, news, and opinions on hundreds of today's important social issues, including racism, capital punishment, global warming, and voting rights with reference sources, newspaper and magazine articles, scholarly journals, court cases, government documents, viewpoints, maps, images, audio, video and websites.
- In Context: Biography This link opens in a new window Built on a foundation of more than 640,000 biographical entries, Gale In Context: Biography covers international figures from all time periods and areas of study. The database also includes full-text articles from nearly 250 periodicals. Search for people based on one or more personal facts such as birth and death years and places, nationality, ethnicity, occupation or gender, or combine criteria to create highly-targeted custom search results.
- In Context: US History This link opens in a new window Gale in Context: U.S. History is an online experience for those seeking contextual information on hundreds of the most significant people, events and topics in U.S. History. Topics range from the arrival of Vikings in North America all to the way to the first stirrings of the American Revolution and on through the Civil Rights movement, 9/11, and the War on Terror. Content includes reference works, millions of news and periodical articles, and more than 5,000 rare and vital primary source documents that range from slave journals to presidential papers.
- In Context: Science This link opens in a new window From climate change to genetically modified organisms to fracking, the wealth of content in Gale In Context: Science spans the fields of biology, chemistry, physics, earth and environmental science, health and medicine, and math and technology. Go beyond research projects and choose from over 350 experiments in 200 entries to assign during everyday instruction, enabling hands-on learning anywhere students have online access.
Fact Sheets & FAQs
- Fact Sheets & FAQsYour Lexile measure allows you to find books that reflect your reading ability and interests, and are challenging enough to help strengthen your reading skills.
Check with a librarian to search for a book.