What are graded readers, and which series should you read?
Graded readers are books written or retold for language learners, with the vocabulary and grammar of each level kept to a fixed list, from about 250 headwords at the lowest level to 2,500 or more at the top. For English, the big series are Oxford Bookworms, Penguin Readers, Cambridge English Readers and Macmillan Readers, labelled by their publishers from CEFR pre-A1 to C1; pick a series by its headword count, not its level name, and check any book with a one-page test.
What is a graded reader?
A graded reader is a book written or adapted for people learning a language. The publisher sets a list of words and grammar for each level, and the writer keeps to it, so a reader at that level meets few words outside the list. The Extensive Reading Foundation also calls them language learner literature. Some are stories written for learners; many are retellings of classics or of recent bestsellers; some are non-fiction.
Levels are counted in headwords: the base words a writer may use at that level. One headword covers its forms, so “walk” also allows “walks” and “walked”. Publishers count headwords in their own way, which is why the numbers below compare series only roughly.
The control is what makes graded readers easy. Paul Nation counted the words in an Oxford Bookworms retelling of The Picture of Dorian Gray at 1,000 headwords: a reader who knows the 3,000 most frequent English word families, plus the characters’ names, knows 98.86% of its words. An ordinary novel needs 8,000 to 9,000 word families, again plus names, for 98%.
How do graded reader levels match CEFR?
Each publisher maps its own levels to the CEFR scale, from A1 (beginner) to C2. The table puts the four big English series side by side by CEFR level, with each publisher’s headword count in brackets. Macmillan publishes CEFR levels for its readers but, on the pages we checked, no headword counts.
| CEFR | Oxford Bookworms | Penguin Readers | Cambridge English Readers | Macmillan Readers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-A1 | — | Starter (350) | — | — |
| A1 | Starter (250); Stage 1, A1–A2 (400) | Level 1 (550); Level 2, A1+ (700) | Level 1 (400) | Starter; Beginner |
| A2 | Stage 1, A1–A2 (400); Stage 2, A2–B1 (700) | Level 3 (1,000); Level 4, A2+ (1,200) | Level 2 (800) | Elementary |
| B1 | Stage 2, A2–B1 (700); Stage 3 (1,000); Stage 4, B1–B2 (1,400) | Level 5 (1,600); Level 6, B1+ (2,000) | Level 3 (1,300); Level 4 (1,900) | Pre-intermediate |
| B2 | Stage 4, B1–B2 (1,400); Stage 5 (1,800); Stage 6, B2–C1 (2,500) | Level 7 (2,500) | Level 5 (2,800) | Intermediate; Upper, B2+ |
| C1 | Stage 6, B2–C1 (2,500) | — | Level 6 (3,800) | — |
Sources for the table: Oxford University Press; Penguin Readers Handbook; Cambridge catalogue 2025 and Cambridge English Shop; Macmillan Education. On its Cambridge English Readers page the catalogue gives headwords for each level and A1–C1 for the series as a whole; the CEFR label for each level is the one the same catalogue prints for Cambridge’s other series with the same seven levels and headword counts, Cambridge Experience Readers, and Cambridge’s shop lists Level 4 titles as B1 and Level 6 titles as C1. Cambridge’s Starter level (250 headwords) has no CEFR label in the catalogue, so it is not in the table.
Two things stand out. First, the labels are generous at the top: the highest Penguin level is B2 and the highest Oxford stage reaches into C1, yet both stop at 2,500 headwords, far below what an original novel needs. Second, the same label covers very different books. A B1 reader can mean 700 headwords or 2,000, depending on the series. The Extensive Reading Foundation makes the same point and publishes its own scale based on headwords only.
Which graded reader series should you read?
The four series differ mostly in what they publish, so the choice is about what you want to read and which books you can get. What each publisher says about its series:
- Oxford Bookworms Library (Oxford University Press): classics, modern fiction and non-fiction (the Factfiles), over 260 books across seven stages. Good if you want well-known stories retold.
- Penguin Readers (Penguin Random House): adaptations of contemporary fiction and non-fiction from Penguin’s own list, plus classics, with streamable audio. Good if you want books people are reading now.
- Cambridge English Readers (Cambridge University Press): original fiction written for learners, not retellings, from Starter to Advanced. Its top level, 3,800 headwords, is the highest of the four series.
- Macmillan Readers (Macmillan Education): six levels from Starter (A1) to Upper (B2+), over 100 titles.
For one level, start where you would rather read too easy than too hard. Graded readers work by volume, so the right book is one you finish in a few sittings without stopping every few lines. Whether they are worth the money and time at all, and what the research says, is on Are graded readers worth it?
Graded readers in Spanish, French, German and Italian
The four series above are for learners of English. Other languages have their own publishers and fewer titles. For Spanish, the levels publishers give to Olly Richards’ short stories, Paco Ardit’s novels, the Lola Lago detective series and Easy Spanish Reader are compared on Which Spanish graded readers are really A1, A2 and B1? For French, German and Italian, see the free sources in Free graded readers like Tadoku.
Are there free graded readers?
Yes, though fewer than paid ones, and mostly in English. The big series above are sold, not given away. Free graded books and levelled texts come from not-for-profit libraries, government programmes, universities and old public-domain school readers. We keep a checked list by language and level: Where to find free graded readers.
How do I check if a graded reader is my level?
Read one page from the middle of the book and count the words you don’t know. For easy reading in quantity, which is what graded readers are for, Paul Nation and Rob Waring suggest no more than three or four unknown words on a page. A study of learners reading a short story estimated the line for reading fiction without help at about 98% of words known, five unknown words on a 250-word page. The step-by-step test is on Is this book right for my level?
Length matters too. Graded readers are short at every level, and original books are not. The table compares the story length Penguin gives for each of its levels with the books in our table of free original books at the same CEFR level.
| CEFR | Penguin Readers | Story length, words | Our books | Median words | Median different words |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | Levels 1–2 | 1,000–5,000 | 2 | 64,193 | 3,744 |
| A2 | Levels 3–4 | 7,000–14,000 | 13 | 25,785 | 3,973 |
| B1 | Levels 5–6 | 15,000–22,000 | 33 | 56,657 | 6,933 |
| B2 | Level 7 | 22,000–26,000 | 37 | 63,710 | 8,135 |
How we counted. Story lengths are Penguin’s own ranges. “Our books” are the public-domain books in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian in our table of free books by level, at the level our team set by hand. Words and different words were counted from the text of each edition, without licence pages; different words are distinct word forms, so “walk” and “walked” count as two. The two A1 books are too few for a fair median. The method is on the About page.
At B1, a typical original book in our table is about two and a half times as long as the longest Penguin reader at that level. An original novel is not only harder word by word; it also asks for many more hours. How many, at your speed: How long does it take to read a book?
When should you move from graded readers to original books?
When graded readers at the top levels of a series feel easy and an original book at your level passes the one-page test. Many learners read both at once: a graded reader for speed and volume, an original for challenge. The signs and the research are on Graded readers or original books?
Sources
- Oxford University Press Spain. Oxford Bookworms Library: stages, headwords and CEFR levels, checked 7 October 2026. oup.es/oxfordbookwormslibrary
- Penguin Random House (2019). Penguin Readers Handbook. penguinreaders.co.uk
- Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Cambridge English International Catalogue 2025, pages 98–99 (Cambridge English Readers; Cambridge Experience Readers), checked 7 October 2026. online.flippingbook.com
- Cambridge English Shop. Berlin Express, Level 4 (CEFR B1) and The Best of Times?, Level 6 (CEFR C1), Cambridge English Readers, checked 7 October 2026. Level 4, Level 6
- Macmillan Education. Macmillan Readers: levels, checked 7 October 2026. macmillanenglish.com
- Extensive Reading Foundation. Graded Readers, checked 7 October 2026. erfoundation.org
- Extensive Reading Foundation. ERF Graded Reader Scale. erfoundation.org
- Nation, I. S. P. (2006). How large a vocabulary is needed for reading and listening? The Canadian Modern Language Review, 63(1), 59–82. doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.63.1.59
- Nation, P. and Waring, R. (2013). Extensive Reading and Graded Readers. erfoundation.org
- Hu, M. and Nation, P. (2000). Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language, 13(1), 403–430. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66973
Next: Which Spanish graded readers are really A1, A2 and B1?