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This article isn't specific to Lexiles but the information is highly relevant.

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Psychologists love to measure things, and perhaps nothing has been measured as much by psychologists as reading-both texts and readers. Multiple different instruments measuring text readability have been devised and used over the past century, as have multiple standardized tests of readers' abilities. Though their results are often first presented as numerical scores whose interpretation is difficult without a key, most instruments also translate these into more generally understood grade-level reading scores. These are typically reported as year-and-month scores; thus a book scoring at reading level 8.1 is said to be written at the early eighth-grade level, while a student scoring at reading level 4.6 is judged to be reading at the level of the average student in the sixth month of fourth grade. Two common reading level systems are exceptions to this: Fountas and Pinnell's Guided Reading program uses letters, from A to Z, while the increasingly popular Lexile leveling scheme rates both texts and readers from 0L to approximately 2000L (there is actually no upper limit). Both of these do, however, offer rough grade level conversion charts on their websites, here and here respectively.

However measured, reading levels can be a generally useful guide to whether a particular text is going to be far too difficult for a particular reader. For example, the student who scored at 4.6 on a recent, valid reading test will probably have significant difficulty reading and understanding that text at an 8.1 reading level.

Unfortunately, though, the ubiquity and precision with which these reading levels are now being tested and reported has led to their increasingly inappropriate use, especially in schools. For example, professional development materials accompanying the Common Core initiative instruct teachers to "match" texts to readers based on Lexile level, staying within a narrow range of only 50L above to 100L below each student's tested Lexile level. Most school reading incentive programs require students to read texts within a restricted range of their measured reading skill levels, either within the Lexile range just mentioned, or, if using another rating system, within five months of their measured reading levels. For example, that student who tested at 4.6 might only receive credit for reading books leveled from 4.1 to 5.1. Many schools now even restrict the books students can check out from the school library to those at such "appropriate" levels, and in some cases, parents are even being told to " concentrate on material within his or her Lexile range " when offering books to their children at home.

Such misguided policies and practices are based on three very prevalent myths about reading levels:
Myth #1: Each text has a discrete, accurately measurable reading level.
Because reading levels are often reported very precisely, one might think that measuring the readability of a text was an exact, agreed upon science. Nothing could be further from the truth. Almost all text level measures are based upon some combination of word difficulty (measured by number of letters, number of syllables, and/or frequency of use) and sentence complexity (measured by length in words and/or number of phrases). However, the specific formulas and differing emphases of various measures can result in very different reading levels for a single text.

Take, for example, the 2016 Newbery Medal book, The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill. The Lexile corporation rates this award-winning book for young teens at 640L, equivalent to somewhere between a 3rd and 5th grade reading level, according to their conversion tables. ATOS, the reading level system used by the Accelerated Reader program, rates it at reading level 4.8 (i.e., 4th grade, 8th month). Using the first 200 words from Chapter 2 of the book, the Free Readability Calculator results in the following range of levels, from seven more of the best known and respected readability scales, for exactly the same words from the same book:

Automated Readability Index: RL 5.6

The SMOG Index: RL 5.8

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: RL 5.8

Linsear Write Formula: RL 6.6

Dale-Chall Formula: RL 6.9

Gunning Fog Index: RL 7.6

The Coleman-Liau Index: RL 8.0

That readability scores for this book, based on well-accepted, research-based formulas, span more than three grade levels is not an unusual result; try it for yourself using 150 words or more from any text. And of course, none of these scales can measure how well the text is actually written-whether the author uses transitions effectively, provides rich descriptions, or explains things clearly, all of which certainly affect the readability of a text.
Myth #2: Each reader has a discrete, accurately measurable level of reading skill.
Tests of reading skill levels, even those that are carefully designed and commonly used, suffer from many of the same difficulties as measures of text readability, in that each uses differing contents and criteria for measuring reading ability.

Some use lists of common words at differing grade levels to judge decoding ability, while others require readers to pronounce a list of nonsense words as well. Some include measures of oral reading fluency and/or vocabulary, while others do not. Some tests ask readers to answer questions after reading a passage, while others measure comprehension through a CLOZE procedure in which readers are asked to supply missing words in a passage, and still others require readers to recall salient details of a text as a means of judging comprehension. Some tests are given by a trained psychologist, one-on-one, while others are given to groups of students in regular class settings. Some are timed, while others are not.

Even the very criterion for scoring "at" a certain reading level differs among tests, with some tests allowing readers to attempt all the test questions (or as many as they have time for), and then scoring based on the number of correct answers, while others subtract a certain percentage of incorrect answers from the number of correct answers before scoring, and still others arrive at a reading level by stopping the test after the reader has missed a certain set number of questions.

Not surprisingly, readers will often score quite differently on different reading tests.

In addition, while texts stay the same from day to day, readers do not. People's performance on many tasks, including reading tests, can be significantly affected by whether they are tired or well-rested, hungry or full, healthy or sick, distracted or focused, anxious or confident. Children are perhaps even more affected by such outer circumstances, since they lack the maturation and self-regulation skills that allow many adults to maintain more even performance levels in varying circumstances.

Myth #3: Readers should (almost always) read texts very near their reading level.

Given the margins of error implied by the variability in both text readability and reading skill measurement described above, the expectation that texts can be closely "matched" to readers' skill levels is clearly unfounded. The idea that texts should always be matched to readers' tested levels is equally problematic, for a number of reasons.

First, reading is an interactive process, so the difficulty or ease with which a particular reader can read a particular text depends in part on his or her prior knowledge related to the text and motivation for reading it.

Reading research has repeatedly demonstrated the effects of prior knowledge on reading comprehension; simply put, it is easier to read and understand texts that talk about things you already know a lot about. When readers have a good bit of prior knowledge on a topic, even difficult texts can be easier to read and understand because they can draw on their own knowledge to fill in any gaps in their comprehension. Conversely, many of us have experienced the effects of a lack of prior knowledge when first reading in an unfamiliar subject area, whether it is economics or art or environmental science. It is not so much that we cannot read or do not know the words in the texts, as it is that we don't have the background knowledge to make sense of what they say. Similarly, readers demonstrate higher "reading levels" in genres that are familiar to them. For example, a complex science fiction novel, very difficult to read for someone who rarely reads in that genre, may be considerably less difficult for a frequent science fiction reader, who is familiar with common science fiction conventions and story lines, and perhaps even with previous books by the same author.

Interest and motivation also great affect a reader's ability to read a text. An excellent example of this is the recent Harry Potter phenomenon, in which thousands of children as young as second grade read and enjoyed 300 and 400 page books written at fifth to seventh-grade reading levels, simply because they were fascinated by the magical world created by J.K. Rowling in her series. Most teachers can likewise recount stories of students like the struggling high school reader who tests at a fourth or fifth-grade reading level, but somehow manages to read and understand a motorcycle repair manual written at the tenth-grade level, because he wants to fix up his motorcycle. And of course, resources can be made available to help truly motivated readers read difficult texts, from dictionaries, online resources, and audio texts to the time-honored strategy of simply asking someone else, a teacher, parent, sibling, or friend, about the words you don't know. We might also point out here that most very early simple books (those with highly repetitive text) simply cannot give children a full sense of the joy of reading.

Also, there is good evidence for the benefits of reading texts both above and below one's official reading level. Reading easier texts can help novice readers, especially, gain fluency and confidence, and can develop readers' enjoyment of reading at all levels. Consider how many of us enjoy relaxing with a good romance or murder mystery that is well below our adult "reading level"! On the other hand, researchers are finding that challenging students to tackle more complex texts, while supporting them in their efforts to do so, leads to greater growth in reading than simply having them read texts at or just above their current reading levels.

Finally, full comprehension is not necessary for a reader to enjoy and benefit from a book. Certainly students should not be assigned and required to learn from a book that is significantly too difficult for them to read, but most of us, again, remember reading and enjoying in childhood books like The Secret Garden or A Christmas Carol or Captains Courageous without, at first, fully understanding the historical contexts or social issues involved. Indeed, it is often as we grow, and read and then reread such books, that we first gain a sense of history or start to value equality or self-reliance or charity, from stories and characters we have grown to love.
Some take-aways:
Reading levels should never be used to limit the texts children may access or try to read. Neither reading tests nor readability measures are anywhere near exact enough to predict which individual child will best be able to read or benefit from which individual book or magazine or online text. There is nothing wrong with letting a child try to read a text, and then abandon it if it is too hard, or too simplistic, or simply boring-after all, adults do this all the time. Limiting reading selections based on reading levels too often results in children having too few texts available to them that they want to read, and thus discourages them from reading altogether.

Passion, curiosity, and knowledge are at least as important as reading levels in helping children find good things to read. This is especially true because we know that motivation and knowledge can increase effective reading levels, while, conversely, readers can enjoy and gain a lot from texts that interest them, even if they are "too easy."

Children should not be required/expected to independently read and learn from texts that are considerably above their reading levels. Ironically, textbooks are perhaps the most common source of such demands, since they are frequently written well above the reading levels of the grades for which they are intended. But disparity between student reading levels and text readability levels does not necessarily mean we should discourage or prevent such students from engaging with such texts. Rather, it should trigger educators to provide support for reading as necessary, including vocabulary- and knowledge-building tools, partner reading, group discussions, audio- and video-texts, and simple availability for questions. Indeed, since reading levels are not exact measures, and also affected by prior knowledge and interest, such supports will probably be helpful to many other students as well.

To read more about this topic, check out these clear, but nuanced discussions of readability and leveled reading by top researchers in this field:

Hiebert, E. H. (2012). Readability and the Common Core's staircase of text complexity. Retrieved from http://ransonbalancedliteracy.cmswiki.wikispaces.net/file/view/Text-Matters_Readability-and-Complexity.pdf

Shanahan, T. (2011). Rejecting instructional level theory. Retrieved from http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/2011/08/rejecting-instructional-level-...

Benjamin, R. G. (2012). Reconstructing readability: Recent developments and recommendations in the analysis of text difficulty. Educational Psychology Review, 24(1), 63-88.

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Psychologists love to measure things, and perhaps nothing has been measured as much by psychologists as reading-both texts and readers. Multiple different instruments measuring text readability have been devised and used over the past century, as have multiple standardized tests of readers' abilities.

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It's hard enough to be a kid. They have lots of things to worry about: parents, friends, sports, grades, etc. Reading can be an escape from those worries, just like it is for adults; it's a way to relax and plunge yourself into someone else's world for a little while. But what happens when a child finds out that they're not reading on the "same level" as the other children? What does that even mean to them? It's not good, they know that. Reading has now become another worry to add to the pile of worries.

Trying to climb the "level ladder" is not what reading is about. It should be about enjoyment and discovery. Focusing too much on text levels can cause problems. Fountas and Pinnell created the F&P Text Level Gradient ™ to be used as a teacher's tool for assessment and instruction. The levels aren't meant to be shared with the children or parents.

Help Students Build Self-Esteem and Love of Reading

"It is detrimental to a student's self-esteem and to their love of reading when they are encouraged to measure their own progress by 'moving up levels,'" (Fountas and Pinnell 2017). Students should not use levels to compare themselves with others or to compete. This is counterintuitive to building a classroom community where each student is respected; has a sense of agency; values collaboration over competition; and grows up seeing themselves as literate.

Make "Choice" Authentic

Telling students to choose by "level" is not an authentic way to select books to read independently. That isn't how I choose a book as an adult. In fact, I really love reading high fantasy, young adult books with a romantic twist. Can I read War and Peace? Sure, but I devour those YA novels like candy and that's what we want students to do: get them to a point where they need to read every day; they yearn for it. As much as possible, strive for them to choose books in a way that all readers do-books that interest and engage them.

Advocate for the Appropriate Use of Levels in Your School

Fountas and Pinnell believe very strongly that students' reading levels have no place in teacher evaluation or on report cards to be sent home to parents. Too much emphasis on levels can lead to misconceptions on the part of families. Informing parents of the level at which their child is reading can make them uneasy. They may see the level as a very exact
measurement, but students don't always read at a precise level. Parents also talk with other parents, and if they find that their child is reading at a lower level than other children, they might panic. But they don't understand the intricacies of how those levels work the way you do.

Levels can be a resource for you and your colleagues to guide student choices for independent reading, but they should not be a limitation or a requirement. Leveled books are instructional tools for teachers who understand them-nothing more. Above all else, a level is a teacher's tool, not a child's label.

Jill Backman, Fountas & Pinnell Marketing Manager

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A Level is a Teacher's Tool, NOT a Child's Label

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It's hard enough to be a kid. They have lots of things to worry about: parents, friends, sports, grades, etc. Reading can be an escape from those worries, just like it is for adults; it's a way to relax and plunge yourself into someone else's world for a little while.

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A Lexile score [based on sentence length and word frequency in the general language], applied to people, is a measure of reading ability, which is taken to mean the capability to make meaning from words and sentences. Lexiles, as applied to text, is a measure of how difficult it is to make meaning from that text.

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Lexile Scores Do More Harm Than Good

Employing photographs of three very wholesome looking children on their website at Lexile.com, MetaMetrics promotes the organization's Lexile Framework by way of a very cute, little girl of elementary school age, a mop-topped middle-school fellow, and broad-shouldered, bright looking young man, who obviously represents the high school crowd. In front of each young person is a two-tone, green dot that denotes the Lexile level at which each child should be reading: 550L, 1000L, and 1300L respectively. The trouble begins here, and it comes in at least three forms. One: The Lexile scores are very often unreliable and misleading. Two: Parents, teachers and curriculum administrators are using Lexile scores as a tool for considering text quality, and that is bad for children. And, three: The implication that by high school, students should be reading books that earn a 1300 Lexile score is pedagogically unsound and pragmatically impossible.

A Look at the Lexile Framework:

The Lexile Framework attempts to "match readers with texts" by way of three "dimensions:" "Reader and Task," "Qualitative," and "Quantitative."

From Lexile.com "Reader and Task" addresses ideas such as "students' knowledge, motivation and interests." "Qualitative" dimensions of a text consider "complexity, such as levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands." "Quantitative" measures include "text complexity, such as word frequency and sentence length, which are typically measured by computer software." If all three inter-related dimensions are considered together, the framework seems arguably sound; however, what is being relied upon by too many parents, teachers, school districts-and even the Common Core-is only the quantitative score. And, Lexile itself, by way of three charming children, is promoting the idea that its product be used that way. The website even has a cell where a title can be inserted to get a Quantitative Lexile score for a book. And this would be fine if the scores were in the least meaningful, helpful, or accurate.

To clarify and expand, here is how a quantitative score is crafted according to a Lexile Agent from the Lexile Support Center blog: "In order to Lexile a book or article, text is split into 125-word slices. Each slice is compared to the nearly 600-million word Lexile corpus - taken from a variety of sources and genres - and words in each sentence are counted. The sentence length and difficulty of the vocabulary is examined throughout the book. These calculations are put into the Lexile equation. Then, each slice's resulting Lexile measure is applied to the Rasch psychometric model to determine the Lexile measure for the entire text. Lexile measures do NOT measure age-appropriateness, the book quality, the book's theme or other such characteristics of the book."

The Lexile Framework in Action:

Within this methodology, some books earn understandably high scores: Don Quixote scores a 1410L; Moby Dick a 1200L; To the Lighthouse 1030L. Some scores are more curious. The Sound and the Fury and Beloved each earn 870, but Farewell to Arms gets a 730L. But, the real absurdity of the Quantitative Lexile score is reveled by making comparisons.

While the novel Beloved earns 870L, the nonfiction book Understanding Toni Morrison's Beloved and Sula, garners 1370L. Similarly, The Sound and the Fury (870L) cannot stand up against the nonfiction book that attempts to explore the novel, William Faulkner's the Sound and the Fury, which earns 1420L. This condition, whereby the nonfiction book that seeks to supplement the novels, is ironically universal in the Lexile Framework. To be fair, any English major knows that books that include in-depth analysis and criticism can be tough reads. And, while the two nonfiction books may indeed have longer sentences that lead to higher scores, it is highly unlikely that any reader would find them more challenging than the novels themselves-particularly to the degree suggested by the difference in their scores. Certainly, if all of the above-mentioned books (fiction and nonfiction) were assessed in terms of all three dimensions of the Lexile Framework, a more comprehensive understanding might be reveled, but that type of analysis is not what is being promoted by Lexile, nor is that how the framework is being employed by schools or parents. But, the picture gets yet more bizarre.

A parent seeking a good read for his or her child-or a school administrator considering a request by a teacher to teach a certain book-might be interested to learn that the Hunger Games scores 810L while Hemingway's classic The Sun Also Rises scores a 610L, which leaves it even short of The Outsiders at 750L. The Fellowship of the Ring at 860L is no match for the sixth-grade staple Hatchet, at 1020L. And, Harry Potter books outrank The Catcher in the Rye, which at 790L, seems remarkably close in text complexity to The Giving Tree at 530L. Again, if this discussion were held in terms of all three dimensions of the framework, there might actually be a cogent discussion. But, that's not how it's happening. And that is not how it will even happen. Parents and educators are too busy for a framework that seeks to manage such complex and qualitative discussions, and Lexile's own website is steering people away from such discussions anyway.

In a perfect world, parents and educators would have the time and resources to use all three dimensions of the Lexile Framework to evaluate every title for every grade level and/or every child. This can't happen, and perhaps this understanding is why Lexile promotes misleading application of its own product.

The Lexile Framework and the Common Core:

More worrisome, however, is how the Quantitative Lexile score is being used to meet the expectation of the Common Core, which calls for students, as they rise though the grade levels, to be reading increasingly complex texts.

School curriculum administrators have broad and complex jobs. And there is no way they can know everything about every grade level and about every discipline for which they are responsible. It makes perfect sense then that they might choose to rely on the Lexile Framework as a tool to help them gauge the validity of texts for each grade level. But, the more the Lexile Framework is explored, the more obvious it becomes that it is not a tool that can in any way help schools choose appropriate books. Nonetheless, more and more often, teachers are being called upon to use Quantitative Lexile scores to defend their literary choices. And teachers are becoming ever more frustrated and marginalized because a debate over a book poses the professional judgment of the teacher against a score generated by a big computer at an influential company with a fancy website.

This tension over where professional judgment best resides-with the professional or with the giant corporation and artificial intelligence-is a struggle shared in many fields, and it is likely that a balance will be someday struck, but it will always be imperative that, at the point of contact between professional and client (between teacher and student or doctor and patient, etc.) any outside tool must best meet the needs of the client-in this case the student. Lexile fails by this measure.

Are The Lexile Framework Expectations Even Reasonable?

Even if the Lexile Framework scores were cogent to the group's own mission, are the goals reasonable?

It may very well be the case, as the framers of the Common Core have implied, that students' college readiness has been negatively affected because the books that are read in schools have, over time and perhaps with the growth of the YA market, become too easy-not challenging enough to build sophisticated reading skill. But, as Lexile.com suggests they should be, should high school students all be expected to read books that score near 1300L? These books include: Great Expectations, Moby Dick, and War and Peace. While these are brilliant books, should teachers and curriculum administrators consider such book the benchmark (Exemplars in the Common Core) for all high school readers?

Interestingly, a search on Lexile.com for books that range from 1200 to 1400 also reveal many titles like the Best Ghost Stories Ever, Rambin' Robots, and YA books like Shrimp. The logic behind the ranking is truly mystifying, but according to Lexile, Moby Dick and Shrimp are of equal complexity.

It's More About the Teaching Than the Titles:

If there is merit to the notion that schools need to improve students' reading sophistication by teaching harder books, then there is even more merit to the idea that teaching needs to improve. Too often, English teachers focus mainly on vocabulary memorization, the memorization of characters and events, themes, and asking students to explore how they feel about characters and their choices. All of those ideas are important, but they do not require, promote, or nurture sophisticated reading-or its development. Sophisticated reading is promoted by studying and comparing how books work: the forms, structures, techniques, and author choices used to express meaning. Also, teachers need to specifically teach and model reading skills.

Simply forcing kids to read harder books will not help them reach Common Core or other educational goals. In fact, intense study of texts and one's self as a reader are better promoted with reasonably easier books. Marathon runners do not improve by running twenty-six miles full tilt every day; one will not improve strength by filling the bar with his or her max weight. Fitness, strength, and reading skills are all improved by way of complex experiences that require a matrix of tasks of various types, intensities, and durations, that taken together promote growth.

Why Do We Teach Reading and Choose Books?

Certainly, this question is far too broad and complex for a thorough examination here, but the answer can be simplified into three very broad categories: skills building, content understanding, and personal growth. All three ideas are critically important yet none is addressed by any of the three dimensions of the Lexile Framework. But, perhaps that is not the Framework's role. After all, if Lexile actually offered a quality tool for choosing books, and if the Common Core (or other curriculum documents) establishes standards, there would exists a pretty good structure from which teachers could work to choose books and design units that address what really matters: increasing skills, expanding understanding, and advancing personal growth. And, while those three most important goals are not really the focus of Lexile or the Common Core, they are central to choosing what book kids read.

The Final-for now-Analysis:

There is some merit in the Common Core's general assertion that, in part, some American schools fail to teach challenging enough books, and this failure negatively affects college readiness and American competitiveness. There is also great validity in the Common Core's assertion that students, as they rise though the grade levels, should be reading increasingly complex texts.

But the Lexile scores do not thoughtfully address those ideas. They make the situation worse.

Perhaps, Lexile needs to find a way to quantify into scores the Reader-and-Task and Qualitative dimensions of its framework so all three dimensions might combine to give helpful and accurate scores. Or maybe, the rising awareness of the issue and an ongoing and intelligent discussion about a solution will change the paradigm-maybe we don't need a tool that quantifies books.

But, if some among us do feel the need to rely on some tool, then we need a better tool, even a minimally good tool-or at least a tool that does more good than harm.

Until that day, however, the Quantitative Lexile scores themselves, while they get some things right, are overall, misleading, harmful, and by any comprehensive assessment, absurd. They should play no role in educational decision making.

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Lexile Scores Do More Harm Than Good Employing photographs of three very wholesome looking children on their website at Lexile.com, MetaMetrics promotes the organization's Lexile Framework by way of a very cute, little girl of elementary school age, a mop-topped middle-school fellow, and broad-shouldered, bright looking young man, who obviously represents the high school crowd.

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On text complexity with some discussion of Lexiles

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The Lexile® Framework for Reading is a scientific approach to measuring both reading ability and the text complexity of reading materials on the same developmental scale.

Educators use Lexile measures to match students with text, putting them on the path to success in school, college and careers.

Lexile measures make it easy for educators to:

Personalize learning.

Measure student growth.

Communicate with parents about their child's progress.

Matching Readers With Text

Materials are in your student's reading comprehension "sweet spot" when they are 100L below to 50L above their Lexile reader measure.

Learn more about how educators use the Lexile Framework:

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Warning: It looks like JavaScript is currently disabled. Please be aware that some features of this website will not work as intended. Skip to main content The Lexile® Framework for Reading is a scientific approach to measuring both reading ability and the text complexity of reading materials on the same developmental scale.

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Last week the Thomas B. Fordham Institute issued a report on the Common Core standards that should give parents, teachers, and lovers of literature serious pause: it found that "many youngsters are not yet working with appropriately complex language in their schoolbooks," and mainstream media outlets quickly jumped on board to sound the alarm: teachers are failing to assign the challenging books demanded by the Common Core.

But missing from this debate is the question of whether the idea of the Lexile makes sense at all. When Huckleberry Finn isn't complex enough for our high-school students, I can't help wondering if we need to change the way we conceptualize literary complexity. I'm an English professor, and I live in Iowa City, a UNESCO World City of Literature, but according to MetaMetrix my bookish hometown might as well go play patty cake. On my way to work I pass the House on Van Buren Street where Kurt Vonnegut began Slaughterhouse Five-but with a score of only 870, this book is only a fourth-grade read. By these standards Mr. Popper's Penguins (weighing in at a respectable 910) is deemed more complex.

I also pass St. Mary's Catholic Church, where Flannery O'Connor sought grace but failed to find the vocabulary needed to push her Collected Stories above the sixth-grade level. I arrive at my office in the same grim building that motivated Raymond Carver to abscond and hold his classes at the nearest bar; his Cathedral scores a puny 590, about the same as Curious George Gets a Medal.

To be fair, both the creators of the Common Core and MetaMetrix admit these standards can't stand as the final measure of complexity. As the Common Core Standards Initiative officially puts it, "until widely available quantitative tools can better account for factors recognized as making such texts challenging, including multiple levels of meaning and mature themes, preference should likely be given to qualitative measures of text complexity when evaluating narrative fiction intended for students in grade 6 and above." But even here, the final goal is a more complex algorithm; qualitative measurement fills in as a flawed stopgap.

Few would oppose giving teachers better tools to challenge students, but this approach seems badly flawed. One alternative would be to trust teachers themselves to determine the moral and aesthetic complexities that engage students as individuals. After all, human expertise is the center of the humanities. Lexile scoring is the intellectual equivalent of a thermometer: perfect for cooking turkeys, but not for encouraging moral growth.

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The Department of Education Thinks 'Mr. Popper's Penguins' is More Complex Than 'Slaughterhouse-Five'

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Last week the Thomas B. Fordham Institute issued a report on the Common Core standards that should give parents, teachers, and lovers of literature serious pause: it found that "many youngsters are not yet working with appropriately complex language in their schoolbooks," and mainstream media outlets quickly jumped on board to sound the alarm: teachers are failing to assign the challenging books demanded by the Common Core.