shinyhappypeople Posted February 25, 2014 Share Posted February 25, 2014 DD10 can easily read books in the 700 to 800 lexile range. My goal is to get her reading a lot of books that are easy for her the hope that it helps her learn to enjoy books. Here's what confuses me. Scholastic Book Wizard tool lists the following titles: The Iron Giant Lexile: 770 Grade Level Equivalent: 4.1 Book of Enchantments Lexile: 780 Grade Level Equivalent: 7.9 The Adventures of Captain Underpants Lexile: 720 Grade Level Equivalent: 4.3 So Captain U has a lower Lexile score than The Iron Giant, and yet has a slightly higher GLE rank. Book of Enchantments has a slightly higher Lexile than The Iron Giant, but a much higher GLE rank. What gives? I'm not sure which information (lexile or GLE) will help me the most in finding books for DD. Would Book of Enchantments be far too difficult for her based on GLE or "just right" based on the Lexile? I also consider book length (shorter is much, much better than longer). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted February 25, 2014 Share Posted February 25, 2014 Below are the explanations for Lexile and GLE. For my kids, the GLE was not really useful as they pick books that have a big range of GLE depending on their interest. Lexile is explained this way from the Lexile website. (bolding mine) "A book, article or piece of text gets a Lexile text measure when it's analyzed by MetaMetrics. For example, the first "Harry Potter" book measures 880L, so it's called an 880 Lexile book. A Lexile text measure is based on the semantic and syntactic elements of a text. Many other factors affect the relationship between a reader and a book, including its content, the age and interests of the reader, and the design of the actual book. The Lexile text measure is a good starting point in the book-selection process, with these other factors then being considered .... .A person's Lexile range, or reading comprehension "sweet spot," is from 100L below to 50L above his or her reported Lexile measure." GLE is explained as a norm comparison "Grade equivalent scores are often misinterpreted as being a grade level standard. A grade equivalent of 5.9, for example, does not represent the desired level of achievement for all grade 5 students. It simply represents the norming group's median score, or projected score, for 5th-grade students in their ninth month of schooling. Achieving the same score as the average student in the norming group may not be an appropriate goal for your students." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
My3girls Posted February 25, 2014 Share Posted February 25, 2014 I'm not sure if I am right or not, but I look at the Lexile score as how difficult the actual reading is, and the grade level taking content more into consideration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lecka Posted February 25, 2014 Share Posted February 25, 2014 I am vague on this: but the lexile level I think is just the difficulty of physically reading the words. The grade level is more about appropriateness. Maybe it is more complicated. Maybe the subject matter is more complicated. Maybe it is more abstract and less is directly spelled out. Kids can read things but miss things going on, if they are on the younger side. A lot of times they may not care, if they are still following along, but they are not having the same experience of reading a book as the target age. There are also books that have "high interest" to older kids, but are written at a lower reading level, as far as how difficult the book is to read. A book like that can have a high grade level, but possibly a lower lexile level. My son has a lower decoding/reading level. This means that I want books for his grade range, but with a lower level of difficulty. So that is how I would use the scores. I like to check that books are not too "old" when I pick books ---- he is in 3rd grade, and there is no need to go above 5th or maybe 6th grade interest for him. For him specifically. He is too young for teen issues. That is for books I would read to him. For books that he is able to read on his own, or that he is having more trouble with, sometimes I will check and see what the levels are. I think it is a little more of a range -- if I am seeing a level where he is fine, and then a level where he is having more trouble. But even then --- the subject of the book can impact how well he can read it. If he is working harder to follow along with what is happening, he does not have as much brain power to spare for the physical reading. So -- he can read series books at a little higher level, where he is familiar with the characters and the structure. For her to enjoy reading -- I think, look for books that look like they will be an easier level for her, and then let her get any series or ridiculous fad book she wants, if that is her interest. I try to get my son interested in series -- if he likes a series, we are not always looking for a book for Mr. Pickypants. For him -- he is interested in reading the same books as other kids, too, so if you know anyone whose child is reading a series, maybe see if the child could loan her a book? That might make it seem cool? Or ---- an older child! Also -- when there are books she likes, Amazon's author page has "people who have books by this author also bought books by...." I look at that sometimes. I read the Divergent series recently, and they are very teen in their content and interest.... I am an adult and loved them.... but the reading level as far as "can you read the words and make sense of what is happening" is much lower. The sentences are written pretty directly, and with fairly short sentences. There are few words with more than 2 syllables. So that is a series that probably has a really wide gap. I am not helped a huge amount by the leveling systems, but I do look at them. They are helpful to some extent. They are not extremely helpful, I would not consider just looking at books within a certain lexile range. But with that said, it can be informative and/or a good starting point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cintinative Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 Oh my goodness, daisychains this has been my question all year too!!! I am soo confused. Thank you for posting this. I am so lost. I have found the same thing--some things that have a higher lexile have a lower grade level equivalent and vice versa. I am finding i need to look at all three--grade level equivalent, lexile and the F&P level. I'm off to read all the comments here. Thanks so much for asking this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cintinative Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 So after reading the comments, my two cents. My PS teacher friend told me to use the lexile and then I told her I was confused about the lexile because some things seemed much harder than others when there was only a 20 point difference in Lexile (or the Lexile of the book was lower, but the vocabulary was harder). Essentially she said that they do some type of testing to determine Lexile level and use that but you still need to use your own judgement. What i find frustrating is that we have not hit on a favorite series yet so I am constantly requesting different books from the library to try and then there is really no guarantee that my child will be able to read it properly even if it is in his "lexile" range. Case in point, he is reading Half Magic right now that I think is too hard for him but Ralph S. Mouse which is similar in Lexile, is much easier. The GLE account for this, but the Lexiles do not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cintinative Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 accidental duplicate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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