What does the reading level number mean?

It is the Screenwise Reading Level: our own number on a scale from Beginning to about 1600, where a reader understands roughly three quarters of a text at that level. Higher means harder text. The result also names the reading stage, from Emergent to Reading Like an Adult, and the grade band that stage usually matches.

Is this a Lexile® test?

No. An official Lexile® measure comes only from MetaMetrics and the school tests it licenses, such as SRI, MAP Growth, STAR and i-Ready. This is Screenwise’s own adaptive check, built the same way those tests are: short passages that get harder or easier with every answer. It reports a Screenwise Reading Level on a scale shaped like the Lexile scale, from Beginning to about 1600, so a teacher can read the two side by side. The two scales have not yet been linked by a study, so treat our number as an estimate, never as your child’s Lexile measure. We are measuring the relationship in classroom pilots and will publish what we find.

What is a Lexile measure, and how do I get an official one?

A Lexile® measure is MetaMetrics’ number for how hard a text is and how well a reader reads, written with an L, like 650L. Schools get it from a licensed test, usually once or twice a year; ask your child’s teacher for the last reading score. Our explainer page walks through what the number means and which books suit each stage.

How does this compare to the SRI, MAP or STAR test at school?

Same idea, smaller scale. School tests are adaptive and use short passages, and so is this one. Theirs have been calibrated on hundreds of thousands of students and report an official measure; ours is calibrated on text difficulty and is being checked against real readers in classroom pilots. Use ours for a quick read between school tests, for picking books, and for seeing growth across the year.

How accurate is a twenty-question check?

About a hundred points either side on our scale. We show that range, not a single false-precise number, and the result page lists every question and how it moved the estimate. Treat it as a confident starting point for choosing books, and run it again in a few months to see growth.

Can I use it with my whole class?

Yes. Create a class and share one link; each student opens it and taps their name. No student accounts, no email. You get every student’s level in one table, a printable report per student, and a CSV export. Retest any time to see the change.

Do I need an account?

Parents, yes, a free one, so the result saves to your child’s profile and personalizes the rest of Screenwise to them. Students in a class never need one: their teacher’s link is all they open.

Free · Lexile-style reading level test

Find your child’s reading level in five minutes.

Name: Screenwise
Author: Screenwise

The same kind of adaptive check as the Lexile® test at school, free. Twenty short questions that adapt to every answer. You get a level, a reading stage, the math behind every point, and a starting shelf of real books.

Not an official Lexile measure: that comes only from your school’s licensed test. Our number sits on a scale shaped like the Lexile scale, so you can read the two side by side.

Teaching a class? Run it for every student at once.

Find your child’s reading level, and a shelf of books to start from.

A short adaptive reading check. Each answer makes the next question harder or easier until the level is pinned down: about twenty questions, five minutes.

Whose reading check is this? (optional — a nickname is plenty; it keeps a separate history per kid)

What grade are they in? (optional — it just sets the starting point)

What are they into? (optional — we’ll match the passages and books to it)

Five minutes gets you a level, the math behind it, and a shelf of books.

A reading check question for a younger reader: a short paragraph about the arctic fox, then a multiple-choice question about why its coat changes color. — Short passages, one question at a time. A right answer brings a harder one; a miss brings an easier one.

A reading check result: Screenwise Reading Level 750, range 650 to 850, First chapter books, Grades 3 to 4. — The level, its range, and the reading stage it matches.

A shelf of book picks for the reader, with covers, WISE scores, and interest filters such as Animals and Sports. — A first shelf of real books at that stage, picked by what your child likes.

A longer reading check passage in four paragraphs, a story about a swim relay, then a question about why a character tells a joke. — Stronger readers get longer passages with a few questions each, including ones about what a character means.

The show-your-work list: each question, the answer given, the correct answer, why the item sits at its level, and how the estimate moved. — Every question, the answer given, and how it moved the level.

Writing about reading tests? These screenshots are free to use in your post, with a link back to this page. Open any one to see it full size and save it.

Teachers

Using this with a class?

Set up a class in a minute: paste first names, share one class link, and every student’s level lands in one table as they finish. No student accounts, no student email. Free for teachers.

See the Class Dashboard

How the reading level is estimated

The check adapts to every answer.

We start near your child’s grade and use a staircase: a correct answer serves a harder question, a miss serves an easier one, mixing reading passages with questions about words in context. Ten to twenty questions bracket the level where a reader understands about three quarters of a text.

Every item has an estimated difficulty, and every answer is weighed.

Most passages are original; some for older readers are short excerpts of classic writing that is now in the public domain. A passage’s difficulty starts as an estimate from its sentence length and word rarity. Hard reading for teenagers often looks plain, though, so their passages are also leveled by what the question asks: finding a stated fact is easier than catching irony or a point the writer never states. We have not yet fitted item difficulties to real readers’ answers, and that is what the classroom pilots are for. The estimate of the reader is Bayesian: each answer updates the odds across the whole scale, so one lucky guess or one slip cannot swing the result on its own. The range on the result is one standard error either side, and the “show your work” panel lists each item and how it moved the estimate.

What the number is, and what it is not.

The Screenwise Reading Level is our own number on our own scale, from Beginning to about 1600. The scale is shaped like the Lexile® scale and built on the same published research about text difficulty, so a teacher can read the two side by side, but it is not a Lexile measure and we do not report one: an official measure comes only from a test MetaMetrics licenses. We are measuring how our number compares to those school tests in classroom pilots and will publish what we find here.

Sources

LEXILE® is a trademark of MetaMetrics, Inc., registered in the United States and abroad. Screenwise is not affiliated with MetaMetrics.

What a Lexile measure means, stage by stageWhat the school’s number tells you, the books worth handing over at every stage, and why interest beats level.