Why the New Raz-Plus Reading Test Cannot Explain a Child’s Reading Difficulty At the beginning of a new school year, many parents will open assessment reports and see a number called a Lexile. Because it is presented as a reading score, it can feel as though that one number tells you exactly where your child reads. A Lexile has a much narrower purpose: it estimates a child’s reading ability on the same scale used to describe the difficulty of books and passages, helping adul