April 23, 2015
From The TRC: Searching For Lexile Scores
It’s April, and a new edition of From the TRC is published to highlight another service or resource Joyner Library’s Teaching Resources Center has to support the College of Education’s faculty and students. In our final post of the school year we’ll cover the Lexile framework and how the TRC has made it easier to search our collection using Lexile text measures.
Overview of Lexile Text Measures
Lexile text measures are based on the semantic and syntactic elements of a text. For example, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (the first book in the Harry Potter series) measures 880L, so it’s called an 880 Lexile book. Remember, the Lexile text measure should only be used as a starting point in the book selection process. Other factors, such as a book’s content, the age and interests of the reader, and the design of the actual book should also influence your choice. The TRC also has a Reading Level Conversion Chart to help you convert Accelerated Reader (AR) or Fountas & Pinnell (F&P) text levels to Lexile scores.
Bibliographies
Currently, almost all of the TRC’s printed bibliographies (noted with an * on our website) also contain the title’s Lexile score whenever possible. We will continue to update the remainder of our bibliographies over the summer as well as provide each title with a brief annotation. See the following example from our Informational Text bibliography:
Searching the Catalog
Beginning this past January, all new books entering the TRC’s collection have had their Lexile number added to their catalog description. View the catalog description for “Great Women of the Civil War” as an example:
Unfortunately, users cannot search for ranges at this time, but, since Lexile text measures are rounded to the nearest 10L, you can use the classic catalog to search up to four (4) Lexile numbers at a time. Simply type “650 Lexile”, “660 Lexile”, “670 Lexile” and “680 Lexile” into the search boxes. Make sure you choose “Keyword anywhere” from each drop down menu on the left of the search box and the “OR” operator from the drop down menu on the right. You can also limit the search to the “Joyner Teaching Resources Collection.” Here is an example:
Of course, if you need assistance, the TRC staff is always willing to lend a helping hand.
Until next time…Dan Z. in the TRC
Click here to view the archive of all From the TRC posts.