Reading levels by grade: what the letters and numbers mean
The published guided reading and Lexile ranges for each grade, why no two systems line up, and the question that matters more than which letter your child is on.
Reading levels by grade depend on which system your child's school uses. On the most common guided reading chart, from Fountas & Pinnell, a child who is meeting expectations finishes kindergarten at level D, Grade 1 at J, Grade 2 at M, Grade 3 at P, Grade 4 at S and Grade 5 at V. On the Lexile scale, the middle half of Grade 2 readers in the middle of the year score between 170L and 545L.
Those are the published figures, and the table below has the rest. But the honest answer to "what reading level should my child be at" is shorter than any chart: the level at which they can read nearly every word, smoothly, and understand it. A letter or a number is only a way of finding that text. The rest of this page explains how to use it.
Guided reading level chart by grade, with Lexile
Two systems, each from its publisher. The Fountas & Pinnell column shows the level at which a child meets expectations at the start and end of the year. The Lexile columns show the middle 50% of students' reading scores in the middle of the year, and the range of text difficulty MetaMetrics lists for each grade, based on the 2012 Common Core text measures.
| Grade | F&P guided reading level (start → end of year) | Lexile reader measures, middle 50% (mid-year) | Lexile text range for the grade (Common Core) |
|---|---|---|---|
| K | B (Nov–Dec) → D | not published in this table | not published in this table |
| 1 | D → J | BR120L to 295L | 190L to 530L |
| 2 | J → M | 170L to 545L | 420L to 650L |
| 3 | M → P | 415L to 760L | 520L to 820L |
| 4 | P → S | 635L to 950L | 740L to 940L |
| 5 | S → V | 770L to 1080L | 830L to 1010L |
BR means Beginning Reader: the code Lexile gives to readers and texts below 0L. So BR120L is an earlier stage than 0L.
Fountas and Pinnell levels by grade, through the year
Fountas & Pinnell's Instructional Level Expectations for Reading chart (Heinemann, 2012) sets four checkpoints a year. These are the "meets expectations" levels:
| Grade | Aug–Sept | Nov–Dec | Feb–Mar | May–June |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K | — | B | C | D |
| 1 | D | F | H | J |
| 2 | J | K | L | M |
| 3 | M | N | O | P |
| 4 | P | Q | R | S |
| 5 | S | T | U | V |
The same chart has bands either side. One level above counts as exceeding expectations; one level below is "approaches expectations: needs short-term intervention"; anything lower is "does not meet expectations: needs intensive intervention". For example, at the end of Grade 1, J meets expectations, I approaches, and below I does not meet.
Fountas & Pinnell print a caveat on the chart itself: it is "intended to provide general guidelines for grade level goals, which should be adjusted based on school/district requirements and professional teacher judgment." Districts do adjust it, so your school's expectations may differ by a level or so.
Lexile level by grade
A Lexile measure is a number followed by an L, and it can describe a reader or a book. Your child gets one from a reading test linked to the Lexile scale, such as a state test or a school screener.
MetaMetrics, which owns the Lexile scale, says plainly that "there is no direct correspondence of a specific Lexile measure to a specific grade level." Its grade ranges are "for descriptive purposes only" and are not meant as a guide to what a child at a given grade should score. The ranges overlap a great deal: the middle half of Grade 3 readers and the middle half of Grade 4 readers share everything from 635L to 760L.
For a single midpoint, MetaMetrics' larger study of about 3.5 million students tested between 2010 and 2016 puts the median end-of-year Lexile at 165L in Grade 1, 425L in Grade 2, 645L in Grade 3, 850L in Grade 4 and 950L in Grade 5. Half of children score below those numbers, by definition.
Why the systems disagree
You will find charts online that line up guided reading levels, Lexile, DRA, Reading Recovery and Accelerated Reader levels in neat rows. Treat them with care. They are mostly made by schools and booksellers, the rows differ from one chart to the next, and the systems measure different things:
- Guided reading levels (Fountas & Pinnell, A to Z) are assigned by people, judging a book on many features: length, layout, picture support, vocabulary, sentence structure, how complex the ideas are. A child's level comes from reading books aloud to a teacher, with a comprehension conversation afterwards.
- Lexile measures are calculated by software from just two features of a text: how common its words are and how long its sentences are. A child's Lexile comes from a reading test linked to the scale, not from reading aloud to a teacher.
- DRA and other systems have their own books, criteria and scoring.
So a book can be easy on one scale and hard on another, and a child can look "on level" in one and "behind" in another. If you are handed a number, ask which system it is and what the school's expectation is for that time of year. That is the comparison that means something.
Schools vary in other ways too. Some have stopped leveling children at all, especially in kindergarten and Grade 1, and use decodable books matched to the phonics a child has been taught instead. If your school does not report a level, that is not a gap in your information.
What level should my child be at? The question underneath
The levels exist to help a teacher find text that is right for practice: hard enough to grow on, easy enough to read. Fountas & Pinnell say so themselves; one of their articles is titled "A Level is a Teacher's Tool, NOT a Child's Label", and they advise against children choosing books by level.
What makes a text "right" is mostly how well your child reads it. The F&P assessment itself sets accuracy thresholds for this:
| Levels | Independent (reads alone) | Instructional (reads with help) | Too hard |
|---|---|---|---|
| A to K | 95–100% of words correct | 90–94% | below 90% |
| L to Z | 98–100% | 95–97% | below 95% |
Those percentages also need good comprehension to count. In plain terms, a book where your child misreads one word in ten is too hard for them to practice on alone, whatever its level says.
How to check at home
Give your child a page from a book at the level the school mentions, one they have not read before, and listen to them read aloud for a minute:
- Accuracy. Count the words they misread, skip, or need you to say after about three seconds. At the early levels, fewer than one error in twenty words is comfortable and more than one in ten is too hard; from level L the bar is higher, as in the table above.
- Rate. Work out their words correct per minute with our words per minute calculator and compare it with the reading fluency norms for their grade.
- Expression. Do they read in phrases and pause at full stops, or one word at a time? See reading with expression and, if every word comes out separately, when a child reads word by word.
- Understanding. Ask them to tell you what happened. If they can read it but cannot retell it, see reading comprehension strategies.
If accuracy is low, go down a level or two for practice; that is not a step backwards. If accuracy is high but reading is slow or flat, stay at that level and read the same passage several times. Repeated reading is the best-evidenced way to build fluency, and how to improve reading fluency has the routine.
Our reading fluency app for kids is built around exactly this. Children read stories aloud at their level, and each read is scored for accuracy, words correct per minute and expression. The app's levels are its own, not guided reading letters, and a child moves up by reading well.
When the level is a real worry
A level below the school's expectation is a reason to talk to the teacher, not a reason to panic. Ask:
- Which system is this, and what is the expectation for this time of year?
- Is the difficulty decoding the words, reading them smoothly, or understanding them?
- What extra help is my child getting, and how will we know it is working?
If your child is more than a band below expectations and not catching up despite good teaching, look at signs of dyslexia in children, and see the grade guides: first grade, second grade and third grade. If the school has sent home DIBELS scores rather than a level, see DIBELS scores explained.
Where these numbers come from
- Fountas, I. C. & Pinnell, G. S., Instructional Level Expectations for Reading (Heinemann, 2012), and the accuracy criteria from the Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System.
- MetaMetrics, Lexile Measures and Grade Levels: mid-year reader measures (middle 50%) and the 2012 Common Core text measures by grade.
- MetaMetrics, Students and Lexile Measures: end-of-year student norms from a 2010–2016 sample of about 3.5 million students.
Free chart from myfluentreader.com — reading fluency benchmarks, a words-per-minute calculator and the full sight-word lists, free and without signing up.
Hear how they read at their level
My Fluent Reader listens while your child reads aloud and scores accuracy, speed and expression on every story, so you can hear whether the level they are on is one they read well.
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