Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
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The Flesch-Kincaid Readability Tests are readability tests designed to indicate how difficult a reading passage is to understand.
One of the tests is known as the "Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease" test. It scores passages on a scale of 0-100. Higher scores indicate material that is easier to read; lower numbers mark harder-to-read passages. The formula for the Reading Ease Test is:
- 206.835 - (1.015 x avg. words per sentence) - (84.6 x avg. syllables per word)
As a rule of thumb, scores of 90-100 are considered easily understandable by an average 5th grader. 8th and 9th grade students could easily understand passages with a score of 60-70, and passage with results of 0-30 are best understood by college graduates. Reader's Digest magazine has a readability index of about 65, Time magazine scores about 52, and the Harvard Law Review has a general readability score in the low 30s.
This test has become a U.S. governmental standard. Many government agencies require documents or forms to meet specific readability levels. Most states require insurance forms to score 40-50 on the test. The U.S. Department of Defense uses the Reading Ease test as the standard test of readability for its documents and forms. The test is so ubiquitous that it is bundled with the popular word processing program Microsoft Word.
An obvious use for readability tests is in the field of education. The "Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Formula" translates the 0-100 score to a U.S. grade level, making it easier for teachers, parents, librarians, and others to judge the readability level of various books and texts. The grade level is calculated with the following formula:
(0.39 x the average number of words per sentence) + (11.8 x the average number of syllables per word) - 15.59
The result is a number that corresponds with a grade level. For example, a score of 6.1 would indicate that the text is understandable by an average student in 6th grade.
An early form of the test was developed by Dr. Rudolf Flesch (author of Why Johnny Can't Read) in the 1940's. J. P. Kincaid modified the test based on work with Navy inductees' understanding of their training manuals. They jointly published their work on readability levels in 1975. This readability statistics is used in Microsoft Word program from Microsoft Corporation
See also
External link
- GNU Style and Diction (http://www.gnu.org/software/diction/diction.html) Command line programs to calculate score