Who determines the Lexiles, GRLs and Reading Levels for Scholastic Reading Counts! titles?
A. Lexiles are a proprietary score for books (and readers), performed under contract from Scholastic, by MetaMetrics: www.lexile.com. Guided Reading Levels (GRLs) are based on a system developed by Gay Su Pinnell and Irene Fountas. While they do have legal control over the specific scores, Scholastic Reading Counts! editors – educators and librarians – have assigned the GRLs in a manner consistent with their guidelines. Additionally, Scholastic Reading Counts! recently replaced thousands of GRLs in its database to make them consistent with the scores in the Fountas and Pinnell Leveled Book List, K-8, from Heinemann. Reading levels are assigned by SRC! editors, taking into account both readability and content.