What’s In Your Library?

My 11-year old loves books, but reading is not easy for her. As she approached the start of middle school she was convinced that there were “no books for her”. In her mind, middle schoolers were supposed to read long, chapter books with tricky words and complex stories. As educators, we know that not all learners are the same and therefore the books in a classroom library should reflect the wide range of readers we know sit in front of us. But how can teachers be sure that their library contains books that span a wide enough range for their different students?

As you utilize your classroom this year, take 30 minutes to do a quick library audit. Does the range of text difficulty in your collection span the reading ability of the actual readers in front of you? This is important for readers of all ages (Yes, even middle and high school readers benefit from an intentionally designed classroom library at their fingertips!)

To “level” or not “to level”?

There are conflicting opinions on “leveling” your classroom library. Like many teaching practices, it’s all about how you implement a leveling system. Instead of leveling your library and then directing certain students to only choose from that level, begin by using a leveling system to simply confirm that there is a wide range of texts spanning the ability of your entire class. Lexile text measures are a perfect place to start leveling your books.

A Lexile text measure is determined by a science-based approach to measuring text complexity, using indicators like sentence length and word frequency. For early reader texts, Lexile measures are derived from text patterns, vocabulary, decoding, and sentence length and structure. Research has shown these factors to be reliable predictors of how difficult a text is to comprehend.

Get Started: Use Lexile text measures to differentiate a library

For this example, let’s work on a 5th-grade classroom library. In just 30 minutes, we will:

• Take a quick snapshot of the current text difficulty range in the library collection
• Understand the typical reading ability of students in 5th grade
• Identify gaps in the collection
• Discover additional texts to support a wide range of 5th-grade readers

Step #1: Select a sample of 8-10 books from our collection that range from easy, to just right, to challenging for 5th graders.

What do you think the estimated text level is for each of these books? Are they “easy”, “just right”, or “challenging” for typical 5th-grade readers?

5th grade sample collection of texts (The Doomsday Detectives, The Tuffted Puffins of Triangle Island, Color in Nature, Who is Lin-Manuel Miranda, Holes, Esperanza Rising, Wonder, The Mighty Miss Malone, Ruth the Red Riding Hood Fairy)

Step #2: Use the Lexile Find a Book Quick Search to easily search and find the measures of your texts.

Add your texts to “My Bookshelf” to keep track of what you have in your collection.

Step #3: Review the Lexile text range of your collection.

5th-grade sample collection as displayed in “My Bookshelf”. In this example, you can see that the text difficulty of this collection ranges from 660L-1220L.

Step #4: Understand the typical reading range for students in your grade.

In the Find a Book tool you can also Search by Grade Level to understand the typical Lexile reading range of 5th graders. These reading ranges are determined based on grade level data collected from thousands of students across the nation who have taken a Lexile aligned assessment. These Lexile reading ranges and percentiles represent the typical performance of readers in each grade level. These norms do not represent standards-based reading levels.

To see the normative across grade levels, visit Lexile Grade Level charts.

Select Grade 5 and “Difficult” thumbs-down to see the lower reading range of typical 5th graders. Repeat this step by selecting “Easy” thumbs up to see the upper reading range.

The tool will automatically display the reading range of typical 5th graders who find reading difficult. You can see that 5th graders in the 1st percentile would benefit from reading texts as low as 325L.

Once you select the “Difficult” and “Easy” filters, you will see the range for 5th-grade readers 325L-1400L. Does our collection span that range?

Step #5: Find texts to fill in text difficulty gaps

Now that we know the typical range of 5th-grade readers AND the text difficulty range of our library, we understand that we can support even more of our 5th graders by widening the text level range to span 325L-1400L. Let’s focus on finding books from 325L-600L since we don’t have any in that range.

Search by range in Lexile Find a Book:

• Use the range boxes.
• Input a lower Lexile range that is still in the normative 5th-grade range 325L-600L. 

Select the HL (high interest - low level) filter to display books that are appropriate for older readers that need lower level texts.

Example input for the lower end of the range with HL filter selected.

Step #6: Add new texts to “My Bookshelf”

Use the results page to find books that meet your criteria and add them to your favorites. Maybe these texts already exist in your school or local public library. Or maybe you can purchase them to add to your collection.

Support a Love of Reading

While text complexity is an important key in establishing a differentiated library, topic and format are also crucial. It has been well-established that student engagement increases comprehension. To take your library beyond leveling, you can also explore the advanced search options in Lexile Find a Book to add books from a variety of topics and genres.

Take a few minutes to learn about what already lies in your collection and use Lexile Find a Book to strategically grow your library. Create a welcoming space where your students can find books that meet their reading needs and interests.