Lexile by Chapter Guides
Using Lexile Measures to Teach Chapter Books
Just as books vary in their text complexity, chapters within books vary as well. When teaching a book to a class, many educators use Lexile by Chapter Guides — which measure each chapter’s text separately — to help them better plan instruction.
An Example: James and the Giant Peach
This chart shows an example of the book James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. The book has an overall Lexile text measure of 870L, but the text in each chapter ranges in difficulty from 400L to nearly 1600L.
By knowing which chapters are easier and more difficult in advance, educators can determine when they might need more instructional scaffolding and discussion. During the easier chapters, they can engage students in other important learning activities such as writing and verbalizing supporting ideas with textual evidence. Students themselves use the guides them to think about where in the text they may need to engage in close reading.
How were books chosen for the guides?
The books were originally selected based on research into the most commonly taught full-length works at various levels (Applebee, 1989; Shanahan and Duffett, 2013). We added additional titles in consultation with classroom teachers and school librarians from across the country. Because some titles are assigned in multiple grade levels, you might see the same book appear in more than one category.
Fiction & Novels
Informational Text & Literary Non-Fiction
| Popular Middle School Titles | Popular High School Titles |
|---|---|
| Chasing Lincoln’s Killer | A Long Way Gone |
| Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines (grades 6-8) | A Room of One’s Own |
| No Summit Out of Sight | Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines (grades 9-10) |
| The Boys Who Challenged Hitler | In Defense of Food |
| The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Young Reader’s Edition) | Into The Wild |
| Team Moon | The Pact |
| We Beat the Street | Twelve Years a Slave |
| How to Read Literature Like a Professor (revised edition) (coming soon!) |
We Want Your Feedback
The list of Lexile by Chapter Guides has grown over time based on feedback by you, and it’s still evolving. We want to make sure it meets your needs, so please take a few minutes to complete this short survey. To submit general questions about Lexile by Chapter Guides, please visit our support center.