"It isn't often that a society gets a chance to start afresh,
and I think that moment is here."
—Chester E. Finn, Jr.*
The
Common Core State Standards Initiative
offers the following overlapping Lexile bands (or Lexile ranges**, as
defined by Common Core) to place texts in the following text complexity
grade bands. According to the Common Core Standards, qualitative scales
of text complexity should be anchored at one end by descriptions of
texts representative of those required in typical first-year
credit-bearing college courses and in workforce training programs.
Similarly, quantitative measures should identify the college- and
career-ready reading level as one endpoint of the scale.
We have realigned our Lexile ranges to match the Common Core
Standards' text complexity grade bands and adjusted upward its
trajectory of reading comprehension development through the grades to
indicate that all students should be reading at the college and career
readiness level by no later than the end of high school.
New
research was released
on August 15, 2012 concerning text complexity. The updates refer to the
three-part model defined in Appendix A of the the Common Core State
Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social
Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects, which combines the
quantitative and qualitative measures of text complexity with reader and
task considerations. The goal of the quantitative study was to provide
information regarding the variety of ways text complexity can be
measured quantitatively and to examine text complexity tools that are
valid, transparent, user friendly, and reliable. We continue to update
our tools to be aligned to the CCSS. Most recently, we updated the
Lexile Map to include CCSS text exemplars and the new CCSS ranges.
Grade
Band |
Current
Lexile Band |
"Stretch"
Lexile Band* |
| K–1 |
N/A |
N/A |
| 2–3 |
450L–725L |
420L–820L |
| 4–5 |
645L–845L |
740L–1010L |
| 6–8 |
860L–1010L |
925L–1185L |
| 9-10 |
960L–1115L |
1050L–1335L |
| 11–CCR |
1070L–1220L |
1185L–1385L |
*COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS FOR ENGLISH, LANGUAGE ARTS, APPENDIX A (ADDITIONAL INFORMATION), NGA AND CCSSO, 2012
The Common Core Standards advocate a "staircase" of
increasing text complexity, beginning in grade 2, so that students can
develop their reading skills and apply them to more difficult texts. At
the lowest grade in each band, students focus on reading texts within
that text complexity band. In the subsequent grade or grades within a
band, students must "stretch" to read a certain proportion of texts from
the next higher text complexity band. This pattern repeats itself
throughout the grades so that students can both build on earlier
literacy gains and challenge themselves with texts at a higher
complexity level. Lexile measures and the Lexile ranges above help to
determine what text is appropriate for each grade band and what should
be considered "stretch" text.
The Common Core Standards devote as much attention to the text
complexity of what students are reading as it does to how students read.
As students advance through the grades, they must both develop their
comprehension skills and apply them to increasingly complex texts. The
proportion of texts that students read each year should come from a
particular text complexity grade band. Students must also show a
steadily increasing ability to discern more from and make fuller use of
text.
Please contact us at
feedback@Lexile.com or 1-888-LEXILES with questions.
**Please note that MetaMetrics defines a
"Lexile range" as text that falls within 100L below to 50L above a reader's Lexile measure.
*Chester E. Finn, Jr. is a former Assistant Secretary of Education in
the George Bush administration, current President of the Fordham
Foundation and a well-known critic of educational reform efforts.
Lexile Link:
http://www.lexile.com/using-lexile/lexile-measures-and-the-ccssi/text-complexity-grade-bands-and-lexile-ranges/
