Publisher reading programs
Step into Reading, I Can Read!, Ready-to-Read — the numbered readers that fill the early-reader shelf. The numbers don't mean the same thing from one program to the next, so every level here is measured against the books actually in it.
A Step 2 and a Level 2 come from different editorial teams working to different rules. Nothing standardises them, which is why the same child can read fluently in one program and stall in another at what looks like the same number.
Each level below carries the Lexile range of the middle half of its books and a typical word count, calculated from the titles actually on that shelf. It is the same yardstick applied to every program, so the numbers can be compared.
If a reader is comfortable in one program, the bands show which level of another sits in the same place. That is usually a better next book than the next number in the series they have outgrown.
29 programs
Each of these publishes at several graded levels. The range beside a program is the Lexile ground it covers from its easiest level to its hardest.
10 lines
These publish at a single reading stage rather than on a ladder — mostly early chapter books, sized and paced alike but not numbered.
Reading levels
Publisher levels only work inside their own program. If school sent home a Lexile measure, an ATOS number or a Fountas & Pinnell letter, those have their own pages — and they cover the whole catalog, not just the readers.
Good to know
