However, it has a Lexile text measure of 740L, which is around the average reading ability for a child completing fourth grade. Take the example of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are (HarperCollins Publishers), a beloved read-aloud book for preschoolers. Although these books seem like easy reading, some picture books can still present a challenging independent reading experience to an age-appropriate reader for reasons of text difficulty, book layout or design. Picture a parent reading a book to a child on the sofa, or a teacher reading a book aloud to the class. Documentation here.Picture books are often labeled AD, or “adult directed,” because they are usually read to a child, rather than a child reading them independently. Macmillan has a useful online reader level assessment tool. Intensive Reading Lexile Levels (approximate) Lexile Levels for Intensive Reading at Different Levels IEC Levels (See Appendix 1 for information on the estimated Lexile level of common IEC reading textbooks, using the Lexile Analyzer tool.) These Lexile levels should be taken into account when selecting reading passages for in-class use and final exams. Table 2 below is based on Smith and Turner’s (2016) research and estimates students’ Lexile levels. However, students at the B2 CEFR level (Intermediate 3 and Advanced 1) might only able to read at the 1000L level (Smith & Turner, 2016). Therefore, students exiting the IEC should be prepared to read at that level. In a study of university textbook demands, Williamson (2008) estimates that university materials are at a 1200L-1400L level. Scores range from 200L to the most difficult 1700L. Using this vocabulary difficulty rating along with sentence length, the system then assigns a Lexile level (L). In part, this is because the Lexile tool analyzes each word in a passage, comparing it to a 600-million word corpus to determine vocabulary difficulty (Lexile, 2017). While Lexile measures correlate with other readability scores, they may be more precise (Wright & Stone, 2004). As students exit the IEC at Advanced 2, they should be reading at that level. They are also relatively easy to interpret, so a 12 th grader should be able to read a text at the 12 th grade level. These scores measure word and sentence length to determine grade level and/or text difficulty. When making former versions of the IEC exam, reading passages were assessed using Flesch Reading Ease and an aggregate of other grade level scores. Both grade level scores and Lexile levels provide some indication of sentence and vocabulary difficulty. While lexical coverage is important, sentence difficulty may also affect reading comprehension. In that way, both the vocabulary in a text and students’ level can influence the selection of reading passages. Tools, such as Lextutor, can help determine that percentage. For example, CEFR B2 level students might know about 3,000 words, so an appropriate reading passage would have 95% of the words from the list of the 3,000 most common words in English. This is relevant when selecting reading passages. The ideal percentage might actually be higher (Nation, 2001 Laufer & Ravenhorst-Kalovski, 2010). Research estimates that only if learners know at least 95% of the words in a text will they be able to adequately understand it (Laufer, 1989 Laufer & Ravenhorst-Kalovski, 2010). However, the threshold for lexical coverage is quite high. Once we understand students’ vocabulary size, we can begin to analyze the vocabulary used in a text and estimate the lexical coverage. Vocabulary Size at Different Common European Framework Levels (CEFR) Common European Framework Level While the research is not definitive, for the IEC’s purpose, Table 1 below should prove helpful: Several studies have tried to estimate the size of students’ vocabulary at the different CEFR levels (Capel, 2010 Milton, 2010 Milton & Alexiou, 2009). In order to estimate lexical coverage, we need to know students’ vocabulary size. The first concept is lexical coverage, which is how much vocabulary a learner knows in a given text. Here’s a chart I found online Lexical Coverage While imperfect, using the Lexile levels can be helpful. I often find interesting reading materials that are not necessarily created with the EFL student in mind. Most of my classes refer to CEFR levels, especially when designing the coursework.
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