What Are Lexiles?

Lexiles have become the most widely accepted reading measurement in use today; renown as the most accurate way of matching readers to suitable text. Before high-school graduation, more than 19 million students will receive a Lexile measurement.

Developed by MetaMetrics, Inc.®, a Lexile is a scientifically-based reading measurement that can be used to match a patron's reading ability to the overall difficulty of a specified text. This provides educators with a standardized system of measurement, allowing them to better monitor the reading progress of their students.

Educators and librarians are also able to better match readers to titles with similar Lexile measurements. In this way, students will be able to have more enjoyable reading experiences and are less likely to become frustrated by unfamiliar vocabulary or complex sentence structures.

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How are Lexiles measured?

Using MetaMetrics' MetaMetrics'® Lexile Analyzer software, titles are measured based on word frequency (semantic difficulty) and sentence length (syntactic complexity); the resulting Lexile value is numeric, rated on a scale between 0 and 2000. Generally, the larger the Lexile measurement, the more complex the sentence structure—as well as the frequency with which difficult words are used.

Additionally, the same Lexile measurement scale can be applied to identify a patron's reading comprehension. A reader's Lexile level indicates that they are expected to have a 75% comprehension score for a title with the same Lexile measurement. For example, a reader who has a Lexile measurement of 840 should be able to comprehend at least 75% of a title that also has a Lexile measurement of 840.

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What materials have been Lexiled?

Currently, there are more than 100,000 books and more than 70 million newspapers and magazines articles which have been Lexiled, including some on-line databases.

Of those 100,000, there are some that can not be properly measured, and are, therefore, given a Lexile code as opposed to a Lexile measurement.

For example, beginning reader materials often have one or two words per page and no discernible sentences; therefore, instead of scoring a 0 or a negative number, they are assigned a Lexile code of BR (beginning reader).

Poetry and screenplays often use unorthodox punctuation and unconventional paragraphs and line-breaks. These make it difficult for the Lexile Analyzer to determine where a sentence begins and ends. Therefore, these are assigned a code of NP (non-prose).

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Who uses Lexiles?

Reading Counts®, one of the major study programs, uses Lexiles for student interest levels. Many other programs, however, use Lexiles as their standardized method for measuring reading comprehension.

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Reading counts and Lexiles

If you use Reading Counts, and your vendor includes that information in your MARC records, the Lexile information particular to Reading Counts is kept in the 526 tag under subfield _b.

Reading Level is kept in subfield _c and the study program name “Reading Counts” is located in subfield _a. This information can also be found at Scholastic's website where you can look up titles individually.

It is not recommended that you enter Reading Counts® information unless your school or institution also owns the accompanying tests; patrons who see such information may mistakenly think that they can get Reading Counts® credit for reading that title.

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Where can I get Lexile measurements for my titles?

Depending on your vendor, the MARC records that you purchase along with your books may already contain Lexile information. If not, they may become available by simply changing your profile with the vendor or by paying an additional charge.

Lexile information is usually stored in the 521 tag with the _a as the Lexile measurement and _b as the indicator of the Lexile.

You can also get Lexile information manually by searching the Lexile Book Database website. The Lexile Book Database is updated regularly, so if you have an item which lacks a Lexile score and can not be located in the database, be sure to check back frequently. What isn't measured today may be measured tomorrow.

If you have the full text of an item that is not contained in the Lexile Book Database, you can use MetaMetrics'® on-line Lexile Analyzer to score your item.

However, to help make these processes easier, COMPanion has created a Lexile utility for Alexandria that compares your titles to those contained within the Lexile Book Database. If Lexile measurements are found missing from your titles, they will be added to your data.

For more information about the Alexandria Lexile module, contact your COMPanion sales representative at (800)-347-6439.

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Alexandria allows you to import and export item Lexile measurements, regardless if Alexandria's Lexile module has been licensed. Furthermore, even if you're not licensed to use Alexandria's Lexile module, you can apply an item Lexile measurement via the Lexile field in Publication tab of the Items window.

When you run the Import Lexiles or Convert ISBN utilities, you can choose to be either very strict and match only by ISBN or you can allow it to match on title, author, and publisher if there isn't an ISBN match. When the utility performs the less strict matching, it will mark the From Title Match checkbox so that librarians can later verify the Lexile measurement.

Regardless whether you're licensed to use Alexandria's Lexile module, Alexandria allows you to import and export patron Lexile measurements and apply patron Lexile measurements via the Lexile tab in Patrons Management. If you would like to know how you can obtain patron Lexile measurements, please remember that all major standardized reading tests and many popular instructional reading programs can report student reading scores in Lexiles.

Once you've specified a patron's current Lexile measurement, and you are licensed to use the Alexandria Lexile module, you can have it displayed in the Current Patron section of Circulation if your preferences are set correctly.

In the User Interaction preferences, you'll notice the Circulation Window section. This section contains the Display Patron Lexile checkbox. When this box is checked, a patron's most recent Lexile measurement will be displayed in the Current Patron section of Circulation.

As shown in the example above, once the Display Patron Lexile box has been checked, George Austin's Lexile measurement (387) becomes displayed in Current Patron section of Circulation. For privacy and security issues, the Display Patron Lexiles checkbox is not checked by default.

If you have licensed use of Alexandria's Lexile module, the Lexile measurement in the Current Patron section of Circulation will also include testing source information and an optional indicator that compares your patron's Lexile level to the average for his/her grade (e.g. above “+” or below “-”).

Clicking on the Current Patron's Lexile Score creates a quick report that contains all of that patron's stored Lexile information, including a short summary of the Lexile Framework for Reading.

If Keep Patron History is checked in the Statistics tab of Patrons Management, a patron's Lexile history will be kept. For example, if a patron's Lexile measurement changes over time, these will be documented beneath the Lexile History section of the Patron History window. To access a patron's history, click on the Show History button located on the Statistics tab of the Patrons window.

In the example above, Darla's Lexile measurement was changed four times. Each time it was changed, it was recorded to her patron history. Alexandria will track the last twenty-five (25) changes made to a patron's Lexile score.