The Lexile Framework has been a trusted tool for measuring reading ability and text difficulty for over 20 years. It's widely used around the world to support teaching, learning, and assessment of reading, a key skill for academic success. But in China, the Lexile Framework remains relatively unknown among English teachers, learners, and test developers. 

This project set out to explore whether the Lexile Framework could be useful in the Chinese education system. We looked at the reading sections from four major English exams in China, each targeting a different educational stage: junior secondary, senior secondary, collegiate basic, and collegiate intermediate. The four English tests are: 

  • SHSEE (Senior High School Entrance Exam) 
  • NMET (National Matriculation English Test) 
  • CET4 and CET6 (College English Test, Bands 4 and 6) 

We analysed 800 reading texts (200 from each test level) to see how they measured up using the Lexile Analyzer. We also used a locally developed tool called Eng-Editor to compare results and test the accuracy of both systems. 

The study focused on two key questions: 

  1. What is the range of the Lexile measures of the reading texts in English test papers at each of the four educational levels in China? 
  2. In what ways are Lexile measures comparable to text complexity estimates generate by Eng-Editor? 

The findings showed that the Lexile Framework effectively reflected the complexity of the reading materials and closely matched the results from Eng-Editor. This supports the idea that the Lexile Framework can be a valuable tool for understanding and improving English reading education in China. It also gives new insights into the reading demands of China’s four educational levels in the global context. 

Citation

Fan, J., Jin, T., & Chen, I. (2022). Applying the Lexile Framework to evaluate text complexity in the Chinese context: A corpus-based study. British Council. https://doi.org/10.57884/DTXB-ZE63

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