Readability benchmarks are typically expressed in terms of American school grades. These gradings seem to line up with Australian school grades 3–12.

However, these benchmarks should be treated with caution, because referencing school grades oversimplifies the range of reading skills at any level. Students’ reading skills cover a very wide range at any level, as shown in the following figure.

The Australian NAPLAN scheme sets out bands for the reference years in primary and junior high school, showing the range of student reading skills in each year. The 2 middle bands of readers in years 5 and 7 are roughly equal to American scores for school grades 5 and 7. But the American grade 9 lines up roughly with the upper bands of the Australian year 9, suggesting that it is slightly higher than the Australian school grade.