can you read better than a 4th grader?

Friends,

Last Sunday morning’s letter talked about reading. The night before at my cousin’s wedding, he quoted CS Lewis in his speech. Later that Sunday, he was hosting a post-wedding fiesta at his house and the topic turned to book suggestions.

He recommended Lewis’ Screwtape Letters. I have the book but haven’t read it.

[Actually we have 2 copies now because my wife ordered it on my cousin’s rec not knowing I had it, but it works out since I can’t find mine since the move.]

My mother was visiting this week for the festivities so she opened it up and read the first page. She couldn’t understand it. I took a peek. I could read it just fine and in fact I quite like the style but it’s certainly harder than reading popular novels. My mother is a voracious reader, both fiction and self-help, but it’s all Dan Brown level.

I looked up its Lexile Score*.

*According to the Gemini blurb at the top of your Google search that steals views from someone else’s site, a lexile score is a measure of how difficult a text is based on attributes like sentence length and vocabulary

1170.

I looked up Lexile scores for Harry Potter or Dan Brown stuff. It’s all in the 850-920 range.

For context, I highlighted those mid to upper 800s here:

A top decile 3rd grader reads the same as a bottom decile 9th grader. Popular writing is about 4th-grade level. I asked my 7th grader to read a page from Screwtape and he liked it! He started it this past Thursday, after wrapping the Unwanted series he was addicted to. I looked them up. Only about 800 Lexile. Confirming my frustration that while he reads a ton, it all seems below grade level.

But I guess that’s true for almost everyone.

If interested, years ago, I compiled this table of books for kids based on reader recs or personal experience. It includes Lexile scores:

https://notion.moontowermeta.com/book-ideas-for-kids