I Know What Lexiles Are Now What OBJECTIVES

I Know What Lexiles Are… Now What?

OBJECTIVES • To review what we already know about Lexiles • To explore resources for matching readers and books • To learn how to use the Alexandria system to help our students prepare for their summer reading

A B C s a of LEXILES e f b c d g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w xyz

Text Difficulty Engaged Reading Anxiety w o l F l e n n a h C Boredom Reader Skill

Challenge of Matching Text to Reader FLOW Text Context

Challenge of Matching Text to Reader The Reader: • Background of experience • Knowledge of subject • Vocabulary • Developmental level • Purpose and Motivation

Challenge of Matching Text to Reader The Text: • Is the content consistent with the student’s background and reading purpose? • Does the format of the book add or detract from its perceived difficulty? • Does the student have the background and developmental maturity to make sense of the concepts? • Will the book’s organization present a challenge?

Challenge of Matching Text to Reader The Context: • In what setting will the student read the book? • What are the teacher’s expectations of the assignment? • How does the student interpret these expectations?

Challenge of Matching Text to Reader • A dynamic balance of all three factors • A student’s perception about the difficulty of a text • A shared process with the teacher as a guide

Challenge of Matching Text to Reader The following list of books range from: • easy readers • intermediate books • difficult texts rank them in order of increasing difficulty

Rank these books in the order of their Lexiles 1 2 3 4 5

Rank these books in the order of their Lexiles 400 L 1200 L 130 L 1000 L 750 L 2 5 1 4 3

Challenge of Matching Text to Reader Now try arranging these books in order of increasing difficulty.

1 2 3 4 5

640 L 3 870 L 5 530 L 1 720 L 4 570 L 2

Challenge of Matching Text to Reader “Research shows that teacher judgments of the relative difficulty of textual materials can vary by as much as six grade levels. ” Jorgenson, 1977

Lexile Book Database • A tool for connecting students to reading material • Contains tens of thousands of books and articles • Look up books and articles – – By author By title By keyword for child’s interest By Lexile range • Create a booklist

Book Database Select by Title, Author, Lexile, Keyword

Book Database Results of a Search by Author

Book Database Searching by Lexile Range

Book Database Sample List of Books for a Lexile Range

Lexile Analyzer • Analyzes a text file to determine reading difficulty – Check the book database first to see if material is already Lexiled • Helps teachers target material to students • Helps authors target books to their audiences • For limited use to registered users