Retrieving: Lexiles in the Library

Another article that I found in the blue folder from the Lexile training in March of 2005 is entitled "Lexiles in the Library" and was also published by MetaMetrics.  This article is measured 1400L.  It reiterated much of the information from "The Lexile Framework" but did include a few interesting new points.  These included:

* "Tens of thousands of books and tens of millions of articles have Lexile measures.  More than 450 publishers Lexile their titles, and the nation's largest periodical database services use Lexile measures for newspaper and magazine articles" (1).
The database services they are referring to are EBSCO and ProQuest.
If these were the numbers in 2004, just imagine how high the counts must be now!

* There is a free Lexile Book Database where parents and educators can look up the level of virtually any book.  The article suggests labeling books with Lexile measures to help students select books at their appropriate reading levels.  In my library, over half of the collection is labeled in this way, demonstrating that someone once undertook this project.

* The article also suggests using the Lexile Book Database to "create booklists within a student's Lexile range" to help "guide student reading selections" (2).  I have never seen a teacher do this, but it seems that this type of individual attention would actually allow for those missing elements of student interest and maturity level and would be the ideal way to use the system.

"Lexiles in the Library."  MetaMetrics, Inc., 2004.