I’ve got just the book for you

Add to My Folder

By Andrew Thraves — Group Head of Publishing at GL Assessment

Andrew Thraves previews a new scheme, coming to the UK this autumn, that could change the way schools support their children’ development of literacy skills and which aims to give parents the tools they need to truly engage their child in reading

Daniel is what some might call a typical eight-year-old boy. He loves playing with his model aeroplanes, he enjoys spending time with his friends and his mum can sometimes find it a challenge to get him to eat all his vegetables at dinner time. Daniel has another thing in common with many boys of his age. He doesn’t like reading.

So what is a Lexile measure?

The Lexile (L) system enables book titles to be matched with appropriate levels of reading ability, spanning from below 200L for beginners and starter texts to above 1700L for advanced readers and titles. Lexile measures are based on the semantic complexity (the level of the words used) and syntactic sophistication (how the words are written into sentences) of a text. They do not determine the appropriateness of a book for a particular reader – that decision remains with the teacher or parent, who will know best which themes and styles of language are most suitable for the child.