Creating a Line Chart in Excel Using Letters Instead of Numbers

To start, you'll need to enter your data into Excel. You mentioned that you have three pieces of data for each student: their name, their reading level (which is a letter), and the month. So, you'll want to create three columns in Excel, one for each piece of data.

Once you have your data entered, you can create a line chart by following these steps:

1. Select the three columns of data you just created.
2. Click on the Insert tab in the Excel ribbon.
3. Click on the Line chart type.
4. Excel will automatically create a line chart for you, but the reading levels will be displayed as numbers on the vertical axis.
5. To change the vertical axis to display letters instead of numbers, right-click on the vertical axis and select Format Axis from the dropdown menu.
6. In the Format Axis pane that appears on the right side of the screen, under Axis Options, change the Minimum value to 0 and the Maximum value to the number of levels you have (for example, if you have levels A-Z, you would set the maximum value to 25).
7. Under Axis Options, click on the dropdown menu next to Vertical axis crosses and select Axis value.
8. In the Axis value box, enter 0.
9. Under Number, select Custom and in the Type box, enter "@" (without the quotes).
10. Click Close to close the Format Axis pane.

Your line chart should now display the reading levels as letters on the vertical axis. If you have any trouble with these steps, feel free to let me know and I'll do my best to help you out!