Honestly, people make more of this than it is. I say that as someone whoes reading level in the 8th grade was rated “post-High School” in tests. Though IIRC, that particular test wasn’t considered accurate past a 10th grade reading level or so. Suffice it to say, though, I was always rated at least a few grade levels higher than my actual grade level when it comes to reading.
If you pick up examples of post-High School writing, you’ll find it’s hard to read. Basically, check any abstract on a paper for a technical field. It’ll be full of field-specific jargon and long sentences. Copy and paste it into a writing assistant like Hemmingway, and it will scream at you to simplify the sentence structure.
Converting to terms of Lexile level, Fellowship of the Ring has a rating of 860L. By a conversion chart, we would expect 50% of students to be able to read it by the spring of 4th grade. Even the bottom 10% of students can read it by the beginning of 10th grade.
That’s a relatively hard book; harder than what most fiction asks of you. Of Mice and Men, which is on plenty of High School reading lists, only has a Lexile level of 630L. Conversely, Romeo and Juliet can go up to 1260L (though this varies depending on the editing of different editions).
Honestly, people make more of this than it is. I say that as someone whoes reading level in the 8th grade was rated “post-High School” in tests. Though IIRC, that particular test wasn’t considered accurate past a 10th grade reading level or so. Suffice it to say, though, I was always rated at least a few grade levels higher than my actual grade level when it comes to reading.
If you pick up examples of post-High School writing, you’ll find it’s hard to read. Basically, check any abstract on a paper for a technical field. It’ll be full of field-specific jargon and long sentences. Copy and paste it into a writing assistant like Hemmingway, and it will scream at you to simplify the sentence structure.
Converting to terms of Lexile level, Fellowship of the Ring has a rating of 860L. By a conversion chart, we would expect 50% of students to be able to read it by the spring of 4th grade. Even the bottom 10% of students can read it by the beginning of 10th grade.
That’s a relatively hard book; harder than what most fiction asks of you. Of Mice and Men, which is on plenty of High School reading lists, only has a Lexile level of 630L. Conversely, Romeo and Juliet can go up to 1260L (though this varies depending on the editing of different editions).