Reading Level Chart: Grade, Age, Flesch Score & Lexile

Reading level chart

Reading levels from kindergarten to graduate school, lined up by age, Flesch Reading Ease score and Lexile band. Paste text to see which row it lands on.

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Reading level chart by grade and age

Reading levels by US grade, age, Flesch Reading Ease and Lexile band
US grade	Typical age	Flesch Reading Ease	Lexile stretch band	Typical texts
Kindergarten–1	5–7	90–100	—	Early readers, picture books
Grade 2–3	7–9	90–100	420L–820L	Chapter books for young readers
Grade 4–5	9–11	90–100 (grade 5)	740L–1010L	Children’s non-fiction, simple instructions
Grade 6	11–12	80–89	925L–1185L	Patient leaflets, conversational copy
Grade 7	12–13	70–79	925L–1185L	Consumer web pages, popular blogs
Grade 8–9	13–15	60–69	925L–1335L	Plain English: news sites, most business writing
Grade 10–12	15–18	50–59	1050L–1385L	Quality newspapers, specialist magazines
College (13–16)	18–22	30–49	—	Academic and technical writing
Graduate (16+)	22+	0–29	—	Legal contracts, scientific papers

Ages follow the standard US school-year mapping. Flesch bands: Flesch (1948), “A New Readability Yardstick”. Lexile bands: Common Core State Standards, Appendix A supplement (2012); Lexile is a trademark of MetaMetrics and is measured by its own analyzer, not by this site.

How to read this chart

Find the grade your readers are comfortable with, then read across. A grade 8 text should score roughly 60–70 on Flesch Reading Ease; a text that scores 45 is closer to the college rows. The grade numbers come from formulas like Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog and SMOG, which turn sentence and word length into a US school grade.

Reading level is not the same as reader ability

A grade level says how demanding the text is, not who is allowed to read it. Busy experts skim as much as anyone, so a doctor reading a grade 8 summary finishes faster and remembers more. That is why government plain-language guidance and most style guides aim low on purpose. For targets by audience (health, legal, web, education), see what is a good readability score.

Lowering the reading level of a draft

Split sentences longer than about 20 words. Sentence length moves every formula.
Swap three-syllable words for everyday ones where meaning allows (“use” for “utilise”).
Use the readability checker to highlight the hardest sentences first, or the sentence length checker to see the long ones at a glance.

Reading levels: common questions

What are reading levels?

A reading level describes how hard a text is, usually as the US school grade of a reader who could understand it. Readability formulas such as Flesch-Kincaid estimate it from sentence and word length; book-levelling systems such as Lexile use their own scales.

How do I find the reading level of a text?

Paste it into the box on this page. The checker runs six grade-level formulas in your browser, averages them and marks the matching row of the chart. For a full breakdown with highlighted hard sentences, use the readability checker.

What grade level should I write at?

For a general adult audience, grade 7–9 (a Flesch Reading Ease of 60–70). Health information is usually aimed lower, at grade 6–8. Specialist audiences can handle more, but plainer writing is rarely a disadvantage.

How do grade levels compare to Lexile measures?

They measure different things, so there is no exact conversion. The Common Core State Standards (Appendix A, 2012 supplement) publish Lexile “stretch” bands for each grade group, which the chart shows as a rough guide.

What reading level is the average adult?

Figures vary by survey. The US National Assessment of Adult Literacy (2003) found that a large share of adults read at “basic” or “below basic” levels, which is why plain-language guidance aims for grade 8 or lower.