In short
- The CEFR describes what language learners can do at six levels, A1 to C2; it is not a test, a syllabus or a teaching method.
- For reading, it gives a school one shared scale for three jobs: placing pupils, choosing texts and reporting progress.
- Each level is a wide band and pupils move through it slowly, so report movement within a level as well as between levels.
- A level on a pupil or on a story is an estimate; check it against what pupils actually read and understand.
Most schools that teach English use CEFR levels somewhere: on a coursebook, on an exam certificate or in a report to parents. Fewer have read what the levels say about reading. This guide sets that out. It draws on the Council of Europe's own texts and on research into vocabulary, testing and graded readers. It says plainly where that research is thin.
The guide follows one argument. The CEFR describes what learners can do. It was written for all languages, and it is not a test or a syllabus. For reading, it gives a school a shared scale for placing pupils, choosing texts and reporting progress. The levels are wide bands, and pupils move through them slowly. So a school should report movement within a level as well as between levels. Each section links to shorter articles that go deeper.
What is the CEFR?
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is a description of what language learners can do. The Council of Europe published it in 2001 and extended it in a Companion Volume in 2020. It sets out six levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2. A1 and A2 describe a basic user, B1 and B2 an independent user, and C1 and C2 a proficient user. Each level is defined by can-do statements for activities such as reading, listening, speaking and writing.
The 2001 text states its purpose. It provides "a common basis for the elaboration of language syllabuses, curriculum guidelines, examinations, textbooks, etc. across Europe". It was written for languages in general, not for English. The Companion Volume (Council of Europe, 2020) reports that the framework had been translated into 40 languages.
What the CEFR is not
The CEFR is not a test. It is not a syllabus, and it does not tell you how to teach. The 2001 text says so in its notes for the user: "We have NOT set out to tell practitioners what to do, or how to do it." The Companion Volume repeats the point. It calls the CEFR a tool to support educational reform, "not a standardisation tool". It adds that no body monitors or co-ordinates its use.
Most people know the CEFR from a one-page summary. Little (2006) observed that the framework was widely referred to but remained little known beyond the summaries of its six levels. The detailed scales are where the use for a school lies. Several of them describe reading.
Three jobs for a school
For reading, a shared scale does three jobs:
- Placing pupils. Deciding what each pupil can read now.
- Choosing texts. Matching stories and other texts to those pupils.
- Reporting progress. Showing pupils, parents and school leaders what has changed.
When all three use the same scale, they support each other. The rest of this guide takes the jobs in turn, after a closer look at the levels.
The six levels explained
The table gives one reading descriptor for each level. Each is quoted from the scale called 'Overall reading comprehension' in the Companion Volume (Council of Europe, 2020).
| Level | Band | Overall reading comprehension (quoted) |
|---|---|---|
| A1 | Basic user | "Can understand very short, simple texts a single phrase at a time, picking up familiar names, words and basic phrases and rereading as required." |
| A2 | Basic user | "Can understand short, simple texts containing the highest frequency vocabulary, including a proportion of shared international vocabulary items." |
| B1 | Independent user | "Can read straightforward factual texts on subjects related to their field of interest with a satisfactory level of comprehension." |
| B2 | Independent user | "Can read with a large degree of independence, adapting style and speed of reading to different texts and purposes, and using appropriate reference sources selectively." |
| C1 | Proficient user | "Can understand in detail lengthy, complex texts, whether or not these relate to their own area of speciality, provided they can reread difficult sections." |
| C2 | Proficient user | "Can understand virtually all types of texts including abstract, structurally complex, or highly colloquial literary and non-literary writings." |
Read down the column and watch three things grow: the length of the text, the range of topics, and the reader's independence.
The Companion Volume also adds a level below A1, called Pre-A1. It was developed from projects aimed at primary and lower secondary school. A Pre-A1 reader can recognise familiar words that come with pictures, as in a picture book. CEFR Levels A1 to C2 Explained (With Reading Examples) describes the kind of text that fits each level.
Levels are bands, not points
The Companion Volume says the six levels "represent very broad bands of language proficiency" and are very often subdivided. It compares proficiency to a rainbow. The colours shade into each other, and we name six of them so that we can talk about them.
It also describes 'plus levels', such as A2+ and B1+. A plus level is "a very strong competence at a level that does not yet reach the minimum standard for the next criterion level". So A2 is not one place. A pupil who has just reached A2 and a pupil at A2+ may need different books.
How do the levels relate to vocabulary?
The CEFR gives no word counts. Researchers have tried to add them. Milton (2010) reviews results from a test of the 5,000 most frequent English words. Learners who took Cambridge exams at A2 scored about 1,500 to 2,500. Those at B1 scored about 2,750 to 3,250, and those at C2 scored 4,500 or more.
These are recognition scores on one test, and Milton (2010) notes that scores at different levels overlap. He also found that the figures differ from one language to another. How Many Words Do You Need at Each CEFR Level? explains why estimates vary and how to use them.
How do the levels relate to exams and other scales?
Exam boards link their exams to the CEFR. The Companion Volume (Council of Europe, 2020) notes that a manual exists for doing so, and that no body monitors the use of the CEFR. A claim that a test or a book is 'B1' is the claim of whoever makes it. Mapping CEFR Levels to Cambridge Exams and IELTS sets out how exam results are usually matched to levels.
A school often meets other reading scales too, through a test or a pupil's old report. CEFR vs Lexile vs GSE: Mapping Reading Levels explains what each one measures and why converting between them is approximate.
Guides on this
Placing students
Placing a pupil means estimating which reading descriptors the pupil can already meet. It is the first of the three jobs, and the other two depend on it. A class placed too high gets texts it cannot read.
The CEFR does not come with a placement test. The Companion Volume says its descriptor scales "are not primarily intended for assessment". They are reference points. Every placement test is someone's attempt to turn them into tasks and scores.
That attempt is harder than it looks. Alderson and colleagues (2006) ran a project to see whether the CEFR could help test developers build reading and listening tests at each level. They examined test specifications and sample tasks in several languages, and built a grid for analysing test tasks. Agreement between analysts who used the grid was promising, but the authors said it needed training and discussion.
Their conclusion matters for every school. Identifying separate CEFR levels, they wrote, "is at least as much an empirical matter as it is a question of test content". In plain terms, you cannot fix a level by looking at a test or a text. You have to see what real learners do with it.
For a school, that suggests a simple way of working:
- Use reading evidence. A speaking or grammar score does not tell you what a pupil can read.
- Offer texts at two neighbouring levels, such as A2 and B1, and see where understanding drops.
- Include a story and an information text. The descriptors treat them as different kinds of reading.
- Ask for a retelling as well as answers to questions. Count the words the pupil marks as unknown.
- Write down the evidence next to the level, so that the next teacher can see why.
- Check again after some weeks of reading. The first placement is a starting estimate.
How to Assess a Student's English Reading Level describes quick checks and longer formal tests, and when each is worth the time. English Reading Placement Tests for Schools covers how to turn a test result into a decision about classes and books.
A pupil has a profile, not one level
The Companion Volume calls levels "a necessary simplification". It adds that any simple answer, such as B2, "hides a complex profile". A pupil may read at B1 and speak at A2. The framework expects uneven profiles of this kind. It includes many scales so that they can be described.
Classroom example (an illustration, not a case study)
A new pupil joins Year 7 with 'B1' on the report from her last school. You give her a short A2 story and a short B1 article. She retells the story well and marks two unknown words. In the article she marks eleven and cannot say what it is about. You place her at A2+ for reading, note the evidence, and plan to check again at half term.
Guides on this
Levelled, not guessed
The second job is choosing texts. Here the CEFR gives less help than teachers expect, because it describes readers and not texts. It says an A2 reader can understand "short, simple texts". It does not say how short, or which words. Levelling a story means estimating which readers can follow it.
Three things are checked: the words, the grammar and the text itself. How Is a Story Levelled to the CEFR? works through all three, with one passage written at B1 and rewritten at A2.
The words
The share of known words matters most. Hu and Nation (2000) gave 66 adult learners a story in which 80%, 90%, 95% or 100% of the words were familiar. With 80% familiar, nobody reached adequate comprehension. With 90% or 95%, most readers still did not. The authors concluded that around 98% is needed to read fiction without help.
That is about two unknown words in a hundred. The study used adults and one story, so the figure is a guide for school pupils and not a rule.
The references
To check words and grammar against levels, a school needs references for English. Two are public. Capel (2010) describes the English Profile Wordlists, which grade vocabulary from A1 to B2. They grade each meaning of a word, not only the word. Her example is 'keep'. The meaning in 'May I keep this?' is placed at A2, and 'keep doing something' at B1.
O'Keeffe and Mark (2017) describe the English Grammar Profile. It ties over 1,200 statements of grammatical competence to CEFR levels. Both draw on a large corpus of learners' writing. What learners write at a level is a guide to what they can read, not a measure of it.
The labels
Level labels on books are not standard. Claridge (2012) interviewed editors at four major publishers of graded readers and compared the levels on their websites. One publisher classed books of 400 headwords as A1/A2. Another put books of 1,100 headwords in its A2 list.
So ask three questions about any levelled text:
- What was checked: the words, the grammar, the length and topic, or only one of these?
- Against which reference, and does it grade meanings or only spellings?
- Was the text tried with learners at the level?
It also helps to know one level well. What Can an A2 Reader Actually Read? takes the level where many school pupils spend a long time. It shows what falls inside it, with one story written at A1, A2 and B1.
Guides on this
Skills at each level
Reading is not one skill that simply gets stronger. The Companion Volume has an overall scale and five more for kinds of reading. They are correspondence, orientation, information and argument, instructions, and reading as a leisure activity. Reading for orientation means finding information quickly. Reading for information and argument means careful reading of a text.
| Scale | A2 | B1 |
|---|---|---|
| Reading for orientation | "Can find specific, predictable information in simple everyday material such as advertisements, prospectuses, menus, reference lists and timetables." | "Can find and understand relevant information in everyday material, such as letters, brochures and short official documents." |
| Reading for information and argument | "Can understand texts describing people, places, everyday life and culture, etc., provided they use simple language." | "Can recognise significant points in straightforward news articles on familiar subjects." |
| Reading instructions | "Can follow a simple recipe, especially if there are pictures to illustrate the most important steps." | "Can understand clearly expressed, straightforward instructions for a piece of equipment." |
| Reading as a leisure activity | "Can understand short narratives and descriptions of someone's life composed in simple language." | "Can follow the plot of stories, simple novels and comics with a clear linear storyline and high frequency everyday language, given regular use of a dictionary." |
The scales help in planning. A class may be strong at reading stories and weak at finding information in a leaflet or a timetable. CEFR Reading Can-Do Statements, A1 to B2 sets out the statements scale by scale.
A descriptor is an aim as well as a label. The Companion Volume explains that each descriptor appears at the first level where a learner is most likely to manage the task. For a learner one level below, it is "a challenging, but by no means impossible, aim".
Strategies and grammar
Reading strategies have levels too. The scale for identifying cues and inferring expects an A2 reader to use the overall meaning of a short text to guess a word. It expects a B1 reader to work out occasional unknown words from context, when the topic is familiar.
Grammar is a different case. The CEFR lists no English grammar, since it serves every language. The English Grammar Profile described by O'Keeffe and Mark (2017) was built to fill that gap for English. Grammar by CEFR Level: What Learners Meet, A1 to B2 shows the structures level by level.
Guides on this
Why should you report progress within a level?
The third job is reporting progress. The levels were not built as yearly steps. The CEFR (Council of Europe, 2001) warns against reading them "as if they were a linear measurement scale like a ruler". It reports that many learners take more than twice as long to reach B1 from A2 as they needed to reach A2. It expects the step from B1 to B2 to be longer again.
The 2001 text explains this with a picture: a cone that broadens towards the top. Each level covers a wider range of activities, skills and language than the one below. It also urges extreme caution in using levels to calculate how much class time a target needs.
For a school, the result is simple. A pupil can work well for a year and remain 'A2'. If the report shows only the level, it shows no progress. The pupil and the parents may draw the wrong conclusion.
So report inside the level as well. Four kinds of evidence work:
- Plus levels. Record A2, then A2+, then B1.
- Can-do statements. Show which reading statements the pupil now meets, scale by scale.
- Reading done. Count the stories completed at the level.
- Words retained. Show how many of the words met in those stories the pupil still knows weeks later.
None of these replaces the level. Together they show movement that the level hides. How to Measure Reading Progress in a Language Program and How to Report Reading Progress to Parents go further.
One caution. Do not promise a level a year. The CEFR's own warning points the other way.
Putting it together in a school week
Here is one way to fit the three jobs into a normal week. It is an example, not a prescription.
| Day | Job | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Choosing texts | The teacher picks the week's story at the class level and checks its words, structures and topic. She chooses ten words to teach. |
| Tuesday | Reading | The class reads the first part. Pupils underline unknown words. The teacher notes who marks many. |
| Wednesday | Placing | Pupils read at their own level. The teacher hears three pupils retell what they read and records the evidence. |
| Thursday | Reading | The class finishes the story. A short quiz follows. |
| Friday | Reporting | The teacher updates the record: stories completed, can-do statements met, and words still known from last week. |
In this plan, placing is not one test day a year. It is a few minutes a week with a few pupils.
Once a term
- Review each pupil's evidence and adjust levels, including plus levels.
- Check that the texts given to each class matched what the pupils could read.
- Report the level, and the movement within it, to parents and to school leaders.
Keep the limits in mind. Figueras (2012) reviewed the CEFR ten years after it was published. She notes that its levels have become a currency in Europe and beyond, and that it is not a model of absolute perfection. Use the CEFR as a shared language. Keep checking it against what your pupils actually read.
How iRead handles CEFR levels
In iRead, every story, quiz and game is levelled to the CEFR, from A1 to C2. A pack is a CEFR-levelled set of stories, taken from the iRead library or built by the school from its own books. Vocabulary and quizzes are mapped to CEFR bands, so a B1 story means the same thing whichever pack it comes from. School leaders see, by class, grade and term, the levels reached, words retained and stories completed.
Frequently asked questions
What are the CEFR reading levels?
The CEFR has six levels: A1 and A2 (basic user), B1 and B2 (independent user), C1 and C2 (proficient user). For reading, each level is described by can-do statements. They run from very short, simple texts at A1 to virtually all types of text at C2.
Is the CEFR a test?
No. The CEFR describes what learners can do at each level. It is not a test, a syllabus or a teaching method, and no body monitors its use. Tests and books that carry a CEFR level were linked to it by their makers.
How long does it take to move up one CEFR level?
It depends on the level and the learner. The CEFR (Council of Europe, 2001) warns that the levels are not equal steps. Many learners take more than twice as long to go from A2 to B1 as they took to reach A2. Be careful with any fixed promise.
Can a pupil be at different CEFR levels for reading and speaking?
Yes. The Companion Volume says that a single level hides a complex profile, and it expects profiles to be uneven. A pupil may read at B1 and speak at A2. Place pupils for reading with reading evidence, not with a general score for English.
Sources
- Council of Europe (2001). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. rm.coe.int/1680459f97
- Council of Europe (2020). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Companion volume. Council of Europe Publishing, Strasbourg. rm.coe.int/common-european-framework-of-reference-for-languages-learning-teaching/16809ea0d4
- Little, D. (2006). The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Content, purpose, origin, reception and impact. Language Teaching, 39(3), 167-190. doi.org/10.1017/S0261444806003557
- Figueras, N. (2012). The impact of the CEFR. ELT Journal, 66(4), 477-485. doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccs037
- Alderson, J. C., Figueras, N., Kuijper, H., Nold, G., Takala, S., & Tardieu, C. (2006). Analysing tests of reading and listening in relation to the Common European Framework of Reference: The experience of the Dutch CEFR Construct Project. Language Assessment Quarterly, 3(1), 3-30. doi.org/10.1207/s15434311laq0301_2
- Milton, J. (2010). The development of vocabulary breadth across the CEFR levels. In I. Bartning, M. Martin & I. Vedder (Eds.), Communicative proficiency and linguistic development (Eurosla Monographs Series 1), 211-232. www.eurosla.org/monographs/EM01/211-232Milton.pdf
- Hu, M. H.-C., & Nation, P. (2000). Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language, 13(1), 403-430. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66973
- Capel, A. (2010). A1-B2 vocabulary: Insights and issues arising from the English Profile Wordlists project. English Profile Journal, 1(1), e3. doi.org/10.1017/S2041536210000048
- O'Keeffe, A., & Mark, G. (2017). The English Grammar Profile of learner competence: Methodology and key findings. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 22(4), 457-489. doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.14086.oke
- Claridge, G. (2012). Graded readers: How the publishers make the grade. Reading in a Foreign Language, 24(1), 106-119. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66668