Reading Level Chart by Grade: Lexile, F&P, DRA, and AR in One Table
By Readigo editorial team · 2026-07-20 · 9 min read
Short answer
A typical end-of-2nd-grade reader handles books around 420–650 Lexile, Guided Reading levels K–M, DRA 18–28, or AR 2.0–2.9. By the end of 5th grade, that's roughly 830–1010 Lexile, T–V, DRA 50, AR 5.0–5.9. The full grade-by-grade chart is below. Two caveats before you use it. First, the four systems measure different things, so every conversion is approximate - a book can sit at 3rd grade in one system and 4th in another, and neither is wrong. Second, a level describes text difficulty, not your child. Kids read above and below their level all the time, and should.
The conversion chart
The table below aligns the four systems you'll actually meet: Lexile (the number on state test reports and many book jackets), Guided Reading levels (the A–Z letters teachers use, from Fountas & Pinnell), DRA (the numeric levels from the Developmental Reading Assessment), and AR (the grade-decimal levels from Accelerated Reader). Ages are typical for US grades. Read it as end-of-grade targets: a child finishing 3rd grade typically reads books in the N–P / 30–38 / 520L–820L band. If you're at the start of a school year, look one row up.
Reading level chart: grade, age, Lexile, F&P, DRA, and AR
End-of-grade equivalences across the four common US leveling systems. Every cell is approximate - the systems measure different things and their bands overlap on purpose.
| Grade | Age | Lexile | Guided Reading (F&P) | DRA | AR (ATOS) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| K | 5–6 | BR–230L | A–D | A–4 | 0.1–1.0 |
| 1 | 6–7 | 190L–530L | E–J | 6–16 | 1.0–1.9 |
| 2 | 7–8 | 420L–650L | K–M | 18–28 | 2.0–2.9 |
| 3 | 8–9 | 520L–820L | N–P | 30–38 | 3.0–3.9 |
| 4 | 9–10 | 740L–940L | Q–S | 40–44 | 4.0–4.9 |
| 5 | 10–11 | 830L–1010L | T–V | 50 | 5.0–5.9 |
| 6 | 11–12 | 925L–1070L | W–Y | 60 | 6.0–6.9 |
| 7 | 12–13 | 970L–1120L | Z | 70 | 7.0–7.9 |
| 8 | 13–14 | 1010L–1185L | Z | 80 | 8.0–8.9 |
Lexile bands follow the CCSS “stretch” grade bands (BR = Beginning Reader, below 0L). Guided Reading levels are the Fountas & Pinnell text gradient. AR levels use the ATOS grade-decimal scale, where 4.5 reads like mid-4th-grade text.
What each system actually measures
Lexile (MetaMetrics) is a formula. It scores a text mostly on sentence length and word frequency, on a scale from below 0L (marked BR, "Beginning Reader") past 1300L. Kids get a Lexile measure too, usually from a state test or the MAP Growth assessment, so you can match reader to book directly. Because it's a formula, it's consistent - and occasionally absurd. The Grapes of Wrath scores 680L, squarely in the 3rd-grade band, because Steinbeck wrote short sentences. Guided Reading levels (Fountas & Pinnell) are the letters A through Z. They combine measurable text features with human judgment about content, themes, and structure - which is why the levels catch things formulas miss, and why two publishers sometimes disagree about the same book. DRA levels come from the Developmental Reading Assessment, a one-on-one check where a teacher listens to your child read and retell a leveled passage. The scale runs A/1 through 80. DRA and Guided Reading letters map onto each other almost one-to-one (M ≈ DRA 28, for example), so treat them as two spellings of the same measurement. AR (Accelerated Reader, from Renaissance) uses the ATOS formula on a grade-decimal scale: a 4.5 book reads like mid-4th-grade text. Kids take a STAR test at school that produces a matching score plus a recommended range. AR levels say how hard the words and sentences are - not whether the content is age-appropriate. Plenty of YA novels score below 5.0.
Where to find your child's level
Ask the teacher first. Most US elementary schools benchmark reading two or three times a year and can tell you a Guided Reading or DRA level on the spot. For a Lexile measure, check the state test report or MAP report - the number is usually printed there. The Lexile Find a Book tool then matches books to the measure for free. For AR, schools that run the program give a STAR reading test that outputs the score and a suggested range; AR BookFinder looks up the level of nearly any children's book. No school data at all? Our free reading level test takes five questions and maps your child to a reading stage with a next step - it won't print a Lexile number, but it tells you where to start. Pair it with the one-minute fluency check from reading speed by age and you have a solid home picture.
Why the systems disagree
Because they weren't built to agree. Lexile and ATOS are formulas over sentence length and word difficulty. Guided Reading and DRA fold in judgment about ideas, structure, and pictures. A graphic novel with sparse text scores low on any formula while its story does real comprehension work - which is one reason formulas and letters diverge, and one reason graphic novels count as real reading. The bands also overlap by design. Look at the chart: 3rd grade's Lexile band (520L–820L) overlaps 4th grade's (740L–940L). That's not sloppiness. A strong 3rd-grade reader and a typical 4th-grade reader genuinely read the same books. So when the school says level N, the library sticker says DRA 30, and the test report says 600L, nothing is broken. All three sit in the same late-3rd-grade neighborhood. Use the chart to translate, and expect fuzz of half a grade in either direction.
How to use levels without hurting reading
Levels were invented as a matching tool for instruction, not as a fence. Fountas and Pinnell themselves have said publicly that levels were never meant to follow kids to the library. Here's how to keep them useful: Use the level for school-style practice, not for pleasure reading. When your child reads aloud to you for practice, text near their level (roughly 95%+ of words read accurately) builds fluency fastest. When they curl up with a book they chose, level doesn't matter. A motivated kid reading "too hard" books with a parent nearby, or "too easy" comics by the flashlight, is doing exactly the right thing. Check fit with the five-finger rule. Have your child read one page and put up a finger for each word they can't work out. Zero or one finger - easy. Two or three - the sweet spot for practice. Five - save it for read-aloud together. Let interest beat level. A dinosaur-obsessed 2nd grader will fight through a 4th-grade dinosaur book and grow from it. The same kid handed a level-appropriate book about a topic they don't care about reads two pages. Volume builds readers, and interest drives volume. Keep read-alouds above level. Your child's listening comprehension runs about two grades ahead of their reading level through elementary school. Books you read to them can and should be harder than books they read themselves - that's where the vocabulary and story structures come from.
A level is not a progress report
Parents often track the letter the way they track shoe size - and it's a poor growth signal. Levels move in steps, plateau for months, and depend on which passage got tested that morning. A child can grow plenty as a reader while sitting at "M" all winter. Better growth signals: words correct per minute on grade-level text (the norms and a one-minute home test live in reading speed by age), whether reading aloud is starting to sound like talking (see what prosody is), and whether they can tell you what happened in the chapter, unprompted. Those move week to week - and they're the things a level is trying to approximate anyway. If the level itself worries you - your child sits well below the chart's band for their grade and hasn't moved through a school year of practice - read reading below grade level for what schools look for and when an evaluation makes sense.
Where Readigo fits
A level chart tells you which shelf to look at. It can't tell you what's happening when your child actually reads - which words trip them, whether pace is growing, whether "level M" reading sounds fluent or is being ground out word by word. Readigo fills that gap: it listens while your child reads aloud, flags misread words in real time, and tracks accuracy and words-per-minute week over week. So instead of learning your child's level twice a year at benchmark time, you watch the underlying skill - the thing levels approximate - move (or not) every week, and you know when a plateau is real. Book matching plus a live fluency signal beats either one alone.
The bottom line
Print the chart, translate whatever code your school uses, and then hold levels loosely. Match practice text to level, let interest win everywhere else, keep reading aloud above level, and track growth with signals that move - fluency, expression, retelling - rather than a letter that changes twice a year. The level is the map. The reading is the territory.