Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Lexile Information

Is it possible to tie grade-level equivalents to Lexile measures?
There is no direct correspondence between a specific Lexile� measure and a specific grade level.

Although a student may be an excellent reader, it is incorrect to assume that he or she will comprehend text typically found at (and intended for) a higher grade level. A high Lexile measure for a student in one grade indicates that the student can read grade-level-appropriate materials at a very high comprehension rate. The student may not have the background knowledge or maturity to understand material written for an older audience. It is always necessary to preview materials prior to selecting them for a student.

It is important to note that the Lexile measure of a book refers to its text difficulty only. A Lexile measure does not address the content or quality of the book. Lexile measures are based on two well-established predictors of how difficult a text is to comprehend: word frequency and sentence length. 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 measure is a good starting point in your book-selection process, but you should always consider these other factors when making a decision about which book to choose.

Although a student may be an excellent reader, it is incorrect to assume that he or she will comprehend text typically found at (and intended for) a higher grade level.

Is the Lexile not a nationally normed reading achievement test?

What is The Lexile Framework for Reading?
The Lexile Framework is a scientific approach to reading measurement that makes it possible to place readers and text on the same scale. The difference between a reader's Lexile measure and a text's Lexile measure is used to forecast the comprehension the reader will have with the text. The Lexile Framework was built on the common knowledge that text can be ordered as to difficulty, and readers can be ordered as to reading ability.

The Lexile Framework provides a common language which students, teachers, parents and media specialists can use in promoting student growth in reading. The Lexile Framework is not an instructional program any more than a thermometer is a medical treatment. But just as a thermometer can be useful in managing medical interventions, the Lexile Framework can be useful in managing instructional programs and resources.

What is the validity of the Lexile Framework?
Lexile Framework Linked to other Measures of Reading Comprehension. The Lexile Framework for Reading has been linked to several standardized tests of reading comprehension. When assessment scales are linked, a common frame of reference can be used to interpret the test results. This frame of reference can be "used to convey additional normative information, test-content information, and information that is jointly normative and content-based. For many test uses, � [this frame of reference] conveys information that is more crucial than the information conveyed by the primary score scale" (Petersen, Kolen and Hoover, 1989, p. 222).

I interpret this as saying the Lexile is linked to nationally normed tests but is not a nationally normed test in itself.
Does that help?

She also took a straight SRI Lexile test in 2nd grade (the same test she took this year) and the district gave us a print out with a national norm of 99th percentile, so I assumed that the SRI lexile test, in and of itself, had normative data not just the tests with which it is correlated.

What do the normative data reported by SRI indicate?
Norms are derived from the administration of a given assessment, in this case SRI, to a large and representative sample of students across several grades. Students are selected to represent as closely as possible the relevant characteristics of the national population of students. The results of this large, grade-by-grade administration (or the accumulation of data that produces a sample large enough to be representative) create grade-specific, rank-ordered distributions of performance. In other words, for each grade, scores are arranged from lowest to highest to determine the percentage of students at each score. The percentile rank associated with each score represents that score�s position in the ranking.

Because the sample from which the percentile ranks are derived is large and nationally representative, it can be used to determine how your students compare nationally to students in the same grade. For example, when a student earns a Lexile score at the 35th percentile on SRI, he or she is doing as well as or better than 35% of students nationally in the same grade. A student who scores at the 50th percentile is doing as well as or better than 50% of students nationally in the same grade. Percentile ranks do not tell you in an absolute terms how well your students are doing, only how well they are doing compared to other students at their grade level. In other words, normative information tells you nothing about students� mastery of the knowledge, skills, or abilities being measured, only about the relative standing of students compared to one another.

SUBTESTS

Talent Search accepts tests and subtests that measure mathematical and verbal reasoning ability. Since many tests have a wide variety of subtests, and these subtests' names change, the following guidelines can help you identify acceptable subtests:

Acceptable types of tests or subtests include those that look for reasoning. Examples of key words in acceptable test/subtest names include:

applications
aptitude
comprehension
concepts
interpretation
problem-solving
total battery
total math
total reading

If you cannot find a test on this list or have a suggestion for an addition to the list (for which you can provide supporting documentation), please let us know at ctyinfo@jhu.edu