All activities on Quill's activity library are assigned a grade range in addition to their readability level. The readability level is determined by using a series of text complexity systems, such as Lexile, Renaissance ATOS, and the Common Core standards. The grade range indicates which grade levels the activity is appropriate for, taking into account the readability.

In most cases, the readability level is the floor of the grade range. For example, if the readability for an activity is 6th-7th grade, then the grade range would be 6th-12th grade, indicating that that activity is accessible for most students in grades 6-12.

In rare cases, the grade range may start higher than the readability if there are other factors that impact its appropriateness for students. For example, if an activity is written at a 6th-7th grade readability level but addresses a particularly mature or complex subject, the grade range may be 10th-12th to indicate that the activity is only appropriate for older students despite the lower reading level.

The ELL content is another example of where the grade range starts higher than the readability: while the readability of ELL activities is 2nd-3rd, the grade range is 4-12th because we generally don’t recommend Quill to students younger than 4th grade.

We encourage you to use both the readability and the grade range to help you find the activities that are right for your students. You can use the grade range filter first to find a wide range of activities that are appropriate for your students, and then use the readability filter to further narrow down the activities based on how challenging you want the reading component to be.

For example, if you have 9th-grade students, you can use the grade range filter first to filter for 9th-grade activities. You’ll notice these activities have all different readability levels. You can use the readability filter to narrow the list even more—do you want your 9th-grade students to practice the target skill with content that is slightly below their reading level to allow them to focus on skill building? If so, you can use the readability filter to filter for activities with a 6th-7th grade readability. Do you have strong readers who could benefit from practicing the target skill with content at their reading level? Then you can use the readability filter to filter for activities with a 9th-10th grade readability.

Please feel free to send a message to the Quill team using the green message bubble on the bottom right corner of the screen or email us at support@quill.org.