Hello group - I am struggling with some lexile issues. Please DO NOT
consider this the beginning of yet another philosophical discussion
on lexiles. My school uses NWEA testing and along with that comes
lexile numbers. The elementary teachers in our building and high
school teachers who have struggling readers are quite interested in
lexiled books, so I am trying to oblige by leveling the collection.
(Students still get to check out books to read that they simply have
chosen on the basis of "I want to read that book.") With that said,
does anyone have an easy way to determine lexiles? I have gone to
http://www.lexile.com and searched for our books. We do, however,
have a large number of books that are not lexiled. The site suggests
that the librarian or whomever needs the lexile number, contact the
publisher for the lexile level of that book. That sounds about as
imnpossible to me as the instructions for lexile leveling given to us
after I registered for use of their Lexile Analyzer. To use this
analyzer, you must scan in a minimum of 20 pages which is another
killer. Then after you scan it in, you must upload the file into the
analyzer. If you type it in, there are very specific rules to
follow. Here are the given rules:
Text Editing (Conditioning)-before uploading
1. Open your document and review to be sure that all words saved
correctly. It is important that you are not missing text or that some
text converted to strange characters. Make any necessary text changes
in order to match your original text.
2. Most importantly, review your document for end of sentence
punctuation. Make sure it matches your original text and that
punctuation is present. Without end of sentence punctuation, The
Analyzer will place sentences together, therefore creating one long
sentence, which will result in an inaccurate Lexile score.
3. Scan your text for any headers, or imbedded headers. Surround
these items with double brackets [[ ]]. The Analyzer will not
recognize anything surrounded by double brackets.
4. Remove or bracket any page numbers or chapter numbers.
5. If bulleted or numbered lists are complete sentences, remove
or bracket the bullets or numbers and keep the full sentences. If
they are not complete sentences, bracket the entire list.
6.Bracket any poetry, songs, or recipes. The Analyzer does not
recognize non-conventional prose.
7. When your text is prepped correctly, upload your saved text
(.txt) file into the Online Analyzer.
I would also like to note that for children's books, we often find
that special preparation is required due to formatting, font,
sentence length, etc. I recommend if you plan on analyzing a
children's book that you contact me so I can recommend some further
editing advice. Also, the Lexile measure you receive from the Online
Analyzer cannot be posted on a particular book nor can it be recorded
in your marked records. If you would like information on acquiring
certified Lexile scores, feel free to contact me.
The person I have been working with has been very polite but I am
frustrated at the amount of work it takes to lexile. How different
is lexile from Fry's Readability? DOES IT REALLY TAKE 20 PAGES OF A
BOOK TO DETERMINE THE LEVEL? Thanks for any help anyone can give
me. Again, please don't consider this a thread to start flaming
anyone. I appreciate it.
--
Beverly Nelson
Media Generalist
Spring Grove Public School
113 2nd Ave NW
Spring Grove, Minnesota 55974
507-498-3223
bev.nelson@springgrove.k12.mn.us
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