di: RMSE and trade book alignment(s)

Wed Feb 14 16:33:07 PST 2018

Scott posted some years ago: " You can get Lexile scores for RM at
MHEonline.com. All textbook companies have to use it in order to qualify
for adoption in states like ours who require it as a measure."

I'm not sure what Zig had to say, but Tim Shanahan's take on Lexiles is
below, and Barbara Foorman's article is attached:

http://www.cdl.org/articles/to-lexile-or-not-to-lexile-that-is-the-question/
To Lexile or Not to Lexile, That is the Question
<http://www.cdl.org/articles/to-lexile-or-not-to-lexile-that-is-the-question/>

in Articles <http://www.cdl.org/category/articles/>, Literacy
<http://www.cdl.org/category/literacy-2/>, Reading
<http://www.cdl.org/category/reading/>, Teaching
<http://www.cdl.org/category/teaching/> by Timothy Shanahan
<http://www.cdl.org/author/timothyshanahan/>

November 2, 2015

Tim Shanahan

*A teacher’s question:*
*Our school district is going wild over Lexiles because they are in the
Common Core standards. I think they are overdoing it and don’t feel
comfortable with some of the decisions that we are making. What are the
weaknesses of Lexiles?*

First, Lexiles is only one of several readability measures included in the
CCSS. They started with that one, but as studies were completed they added
ATOS, SourceRater, and several others.

Everyone has to remember that Lexiles (and any readability measure) is a
prediction of difficulty, and there since it is a prediction there will be
a certain amount of error in it. It will sometimes overestimate or
underestimate the difficulty of a text. It does this because it predicts
difficulty on the basis of only two variables (word difficulty and sentence
difficulty).

Obviously there is more to text difficulty than that. Nevertheless, the
predictions tend to be reasonably accurate. Why? Mainly because of the
consistency of authors. If an author uses simple words and sentences,
he/she will probably organize their writing in straightforward ways, and
the cohesive structure, tone, and so on will probably not be particularly
nuanced or complex.

But that isn’t always the case. Hemingway tended to use an Anglo-Saxon
vocabulary, and are there any shorter sentences in the English language?,
but try to keep track of who is speaking across pages of dialogue or to
grasp what the characters are feeling just on the basis of the words
themselves… Good luck, 5th graders.

As I say, Lexiles can mispredict.

The appendices to the Common Core recommend some good ways of looking at
text to adjust their placements up or down a bit. Thus, Lexiles (and the
other estimates) can get you close, but then you need to use some judgment.
No matter what Lexiles predicts, what do you think about using this text
with a bunch of kids? (And remember, readability is only one part of the
text selection equation—having kids read about sex or violence or racism,
etc. in school may be just as problematic if the texts are easy or
difficult).

Another reason the predictions aren’t perfect has to do with the reader.
The idea of Lexiles and the other formulas is that we are trying to predict
readers’ comprehension, and there can be reasons from a reader’s side of
the equation why a text may turn out to be easy or hard. Let’s face it, if
the author and I share a lot of knowledge in common, I’ll be able to bridge
the gaps that he/she leaves for me. However, If the reader has less of a
grasp of the content than the author assumed, then the sledding will be a
lot tougher. (Yes, it doesn’t matter if there isn’t much shared knowledge
if the writer doesn’t presume such information in the writing.)

That means when you are selecting materials you have to think about what
the kids might know and whether this text addresses the topic appropriately
or not. Again, separate from the complexity of language: does the text
over-explain something kids will already know (boring) or under-explain new
topics in clear language leaving the kids confused?

Another thing to understand is that a readability score for a text is just
an average. The average will be more accurate the longer the text is (more
data, greater reliability). However, many teachers and publishers will
estimate the difficulty of a text, but then will have the kids read a
particular chapter from that text. Different sections of a text may vary
quite a bit (so the overall difficulty for a text may be 5th grade, but the
chapter you are actually teaching is 3rd grade or 8th grade difficulty).

It might be a good idea to run Lexiles on the actual excerpts and not to
trust that the excerpt is a good representation of the overall text.

Readability measures can be very useful predictors of difficulty, but they
do not help one to write or rewrite texts for particular audiences. For
example, someone might select a text that they want to use, then they find
out that according to Lexiles, the text is too easy or hard for the
intended purpose. What to do? It is not uncommon that teachers or
publishers adjust the passage, perhaps by replacing some words or breaking
up a few sentences, etc. That will change the score (making the text appear
to be more suitable), but it rarely improves the situation. It should be
easy to not do this one yourself, but keeping publishers from playing such
games is a bigger challenge.

Like your district, I’m a Lexile fan, but that doesn’t mean that we should
misuse or abuse Lexiles. It is just a tool, and one that can solve problems
or create problems. Let’s not create them.

_____________________________

Reprinted with permission of the author.

Tim Shanahan is a member of CDL’s Professional Advisory Board.

*Tags: *Timothy Shanahan <http://www.cdl.org/tag/timothy-shanahan/>

On 2 February 2018 at 05:10, Tina Errthum <tmerrthum at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Hello!
>
>
> I was wondering if anyone has done any work with aligning trade books
> readability with the different levels of RMSE. We are trying to create a
> list/library of books students would be successful reading independently,
> after completion of different levels of RMSE. We want our students reading
> as much as humanly possible! I know there have been novel studies created
> by some DI peeps. That is a great start. I am interested in anything K-5.
>
>
> I have a school that talks quite a bit about Lexile scores. I remember
> hearing Zig speak about Lexile and how it isn't always a good indicator for
> reading levels... something like that. Can anyone expand on that for me?
>
>
> Any further learning you help me with around the RMSE and greater reading
> library world would be a tremendous help!
>
>
> Thanks so much!
>
>
> Tina Errthum
>
> Greeley, Colorado
>
> _______________________________________________
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>

-- 
Regards,

Kerry

Dr Kerry Hempenstall
Senior Industry Fellow,
School of Education,
RMIT University,
Melbourne Australia
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