President and Developer of the Lexile Measure for Enhancing English Reading to Visit Korea

SEOUL--(Korea Newswire)--Dr. Malbert Smith, the co-founder and President of the U.S. company MetaMetrics, well known as the developer of the Lexile®Measure used to improve efficiency in English reading, will visit Korea as a participant in the 2012 PKETA International Conference hosted by the Pan-Korea English Teachers Association (PKETA), scheduled to take place on October 20th at Pukyong National University in Busan.

The theme of the upcoming conference is “Perspectives and Directions in Qualitative Research for English Language Teaching and Learning” and Dr. Smith will give a lecture on the 20th entitled “Monitoring Progressin English Reading.” Last July, Dr. Smith also participated as a lecturer in the “KATE 2012 International Conference” hosted by the Korea Association of Teachers of English (KATE) and generously shared his advice on English education in Korea. Dr. Smith is anticipated to share a very special message with professionals engaged in English education at the upcoming event as well.

Last year, MetaMetrics, the company thatdeveloped the Lexile Measure, partnered with Interpark and Natmal, respectively an internet book store and a research institute for lexical information processing specializing in Korean and English.

This year, MetaMetrics signed an MOU with eFuture, an English content developer, as part of its earnest efforts to further disseminate the use of its Lexile Measure in Korea. Interpark uses the Lexile Measure to label English books available for sale in its internet bookstore, and Natmal has developed and made available an English level test service with the assistance of MetaMetrics. To receive a diagnosis of their current reading skills, students can take the E-LQ English Reading Comprehension Assessment at Natmal.com or Kkulmat.com, a cyber-learning service designed by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education for use by elementary and middle school students at home. They can also visit an English library which offers the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) test from the Scholastic company or visit www.engagingenglish.com on-line to receive a free assessment of their own Lexile Measure.

The Lexile Measure is a scientific assessment measure developed to provide an objective evaluation of an individual‘s reading ability and the level of difficulty of an English text. The Lexile Measure provides a consistent scale of measurement for both the reader’s skills and the difficulty level of English texts, enabling readers to select appropriate books that have a level of difficulty corresponding to their own reading skills.

There are two types of Lexile Measures, namely the “Lexile Reader Measure” that indicate an individual's English reading ability and the “Lexile Text Measure” that expresses the level of difficulty of an English text. Both the Lexile Reader Measure and the Text Measure are expressed on the same Lexile scale, shown as a number with an L after it, as in 850L, for example. The Lexile Measure can range from below 200L to above 1600L. A reader with a Lexile Measure of 200L or below would be considered a beginner, while 1600L or higher indicates an advanced reader. Currently, the Lexile Measure is the widely used all across the world as the leading assessment of English reading skills.

The Lexile Measure is particularly popular in the United States, where it is used by approximately 30 million students across all fifty states. Koreans can also find out their Lexile Measures through the easily accessible TOEFL Junior test offered by ETS and use this information to improve their English reading skills.

Dr. Malbert Smith emphasized that “For Koreans who in the majority of cases learn English as a second language, English reading is a very effective and fast way forimproving English skills” and explained that “The Lexile Measure helps match books with a level of difficulty that correspond to the English learner's reading ability and thus makes it possible to engage in English reading more efficiently. I am confident that this will greatly contribute to improving English ability.”

PKETA: http://www.pketa.org
Engaging English: http://www.engagingenglish.com/

This is a news release distributed by Korea Newswire on behalf of this company.