Preparing for the Common Core Standards: Using Lexiles to Locate Literary/Informational Texts

1. Preparing for the Common Core Standards: Using Lexiles to Locate Literary/Informational Texts Nashua School District Library Media Specialists Fall 2012

2. College and career readiness • Common Core State Standards “Students must read widely and deeply from among a broad range of high-quality, increasingly challenging literary and informational texts.”

3. Broad Range • Students gain literary & cultural knowledge  • stories, dramas, poems, and myths from diverse cultures and different time periods • Students build a stronger foundation of knowledge • By reading texts in history/social studies, science, and other disciplines • also give them the background to be better readers in all content areas Common Core State Standards

4. High Quality • CCSS Text Exemplars Appendix B • Literary texts • Informational texts • Print sources in media center • Including primary sources & reference books • Online Databases

5. Increasingly Challenging National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment

6. Lexile Framework – MetaMetrics (1984) • A scientific approach to reading and text measurement • Lexile scores match reader ability and difficulty of text. • If we know how well a student can read and how hard a specific book (article) is to comprehend, we can predict how well that student will likely understand the book. • A developmental scale Beginning Readers/texts Advanced Readers/texts 2001700+ • Target students to books (articles) in a range around a 75% comprehension rate.

7. Sample Lexile measures • Days with Frog and Toad, Arnold Lobel • Flat Stanley, Jeff Brown • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl • Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins • Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney • Hatchet, Gary Paulsen • Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling • Call of the Wild, Jack London • Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen • Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne Source: MetaMetrics, Inc.

8. Sample Lexile measures • 320 Days with Frog and Toad, Arnold Lobel • 640 Flat Stanley, Jeff Brown • 810 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl • 810 Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins • 950 Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney • 1020 Hatchet, Gary Paulsen • 1030 Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling • 1120 Call of the Wild, Jack London • 1180Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen • 1420Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne Source: MetaMetrics, Inc.

9. Lexile Test – measures student comprehension level Avoids labeling reading expectations for a particular grade level. Reading abilities differ broadly within any grade. iReady provides lexile scores for students in grades 3-8. Lexile Score

10. Text Complexity Grade Bands Common Core Standards Appendix A • Common Core Standards advocate a "staircase" of increasing text complexity so that all students are ready for the demands of college and career level reading no later than the end of high school. • Lexile levels have been adjusted.

11. The Reading-Writing Connection Smith III, Malbert. MetaMetrics Position Paper “By placing reading and writing on the same developmental Lexile scale, MetaMetrics has discovered that students typically write about 300L lower than they read.”

12. Why so much emphasis on text complexity & Lexiles?

13. Interquartile Ranges Shown (25% - 75%) 1600 Lexile Framework® for Reading Study Summary of Text Lexile Measures 1400 1200 Text Lexile Measure (L) 1000 800 600 High School Literature College Textbooks Military Personal Use Entry-Level Occupations High School Textbooks SAT 1, ACT, AP* College Literature * Source of National Test Data: MetaMetrics

14. Sample Personal Use/Adult Role Reading Materials Lexile Analysis Form W-4 Employee Withholding 1260L Product Manuals 1360 Apartment Rental Agreement 1380 Benefits Package [Aetna U.S. Healthcare] 1280 Insurance Policies 1310 - 1410 Car Buyers Contract 1370 Real Estate/Legal Contracts 1420 International Center for Leadership in Education International Center for Leadership in Education

15. Entry-level Occupational Reading Materials – Text Measures Architecture/Construction 1210 – 1340 Arts/AV Tech/Communications 1100 – 1190 Business and Administration 1210 – 1310 Education and Training 1320 – 1370 Health Science 1260 – 1300 Human Services 1050 – 1200 Law and Public Safety 1420 – 1740 Manufacturing 1200 – 1310 Retail/Wholesale Sales & Service 1180 – 1270 Scientific Research/Engineering 1190 – 1250 International Center for Leadership in Education

16. ACT: The Condition of College & Career Readiness, 2011 Only one in four (25%) 2011 seniors met all four College Readiness Benchmarks

17. Where to find Lexile levels Lexile.com Destiny Online Catalog – results page Webpath Express Online databases – SIRS and EBSCO

18. Lexile.com Log–in Search Title Lexile Tools - Analyzer - Spanish Analyzer - Lexile map

19. Lexile.com • Find a book's Lexile score by typing the title in the Quick Book Search box

20. Results show different lexiles for various editions

21. Lexile.com – Lexile Analyzer • The lexile measures these types of resources for text complexity • Newspaper and magazine articles (if not listed in database record) • Books • Short stories and reading selections • Passages, interviews and plays for tests • Web pages • The lexile does not measure student writing, reading, achievement OR poems, songs, q uestions or non-prose.

22. How to use Lexile Analyzer • Create an account (free) • Upload article as a .txt file • Copy & paste text (1,000 word max) into a Word document • Edit out any headings/phrases • Save as a Plain text file

23. Submit your Text file Click Browse to search for text file Then click Submit

24. Sample results from Analyzer

25. Webpath Express Lexile scores on search results screen.

26. Locating informational textsin online databases • The following databases provide Lexile scores for many magazine & newspaper articles • EBSCO – high schools, middle schools & elementary schools • SIRS – high schools • They can be accessed through the school’s media center website

27. Value of Online Databases Online Databasesvs Google 10% curriculum relevant Only some written by experts Must evaluate websites Time consuming for quality info Not able to determine reading level • 100% curriculum relevant • Written by experts • High quality content • Faster searching overall • Easier to determine reading (Lexile) level University of California, Berkeley Univ. of California. Berkeley

28. EBSCO is Huge!Actually made up of 10 Databases Differentiate Instruction

29. Student Research Center

30. Easy to limit your search(bottom of Search page) Differentiate Instruction

31. Results Screen • You can: • select one type • of resource • narrow results • by subject • sort by date, lexile, • or relevance Click on title to open article.

32. Full-text article starts with bibliographic & lexile info

33. Works Cited "Appendix A: Research Supporting Key Elements of the Standards Glossary of Key Terms." Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/. N.p., 2010. Web. 9 Nov. 2012. Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. Common Core State Standards Initiative, June 2010. Web. 9 Nov. 2012. "The Condition of College and Career Readiness 2011." ACT. American College Testing, 2011. Web. 9 Nov. 2012. Hess, Karen, and Sue Biggam. "A Discussion of 'Increasing Text Complexity'." The National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, Inc. NCIEA, 2005. Web. 9 Nov. 2012. The Lexile Framework for Reading. MetaMetrics, 2012. Web. 9 Nov. 2012. Smith, Malbert, III. "The Reading-Writing Connection." The Lexile Framework for Reading. MetaMetrics, 2008. Web. 9 Nov. 2012. "Text Measurement Study Using the Lexile Framework for Reading." International Center for Leadership in Education. N.p., Apr. 2009. Web. 9 Nov. 2012.