Noting that readability formulas are strictly text-based and therefore do not reflect the interactive nature of the reading process, this paper argues that many of the instructional material evaluations for which such formulas are used are inappropriate and offers more reader-based alternatives to the use of formulas. The first half of the paper…

Readability formulas can be useful tools in accomplishing their primary purpose--to give very general estimates of difficulty. Unfortunately, there has been a great deal of misunderstanding regarding their use, which has resulted in misuse and abuse. The formulas were designed to be applied post hoc to existing materials. They were not intended to…

Provides step-by-step procedures for developing an index which uses the Gunning Fog technique to evaluate the level of reading difficulty of textbooks. Cites examples, illustrations, and several warnings in the discussion. (RT)

These exercises and examples pertain to readability information presented in preceding articles. They are designed to help speech language pathologists test their intuitions about word and text difficulty and to see readability data from a number of quantitative formulas applied to passages across a wide range of levels. (Contains 8 references.)…

Examples are provided that show readability in action in diverse settings. The first shows how readability analysis resulted in a new fluency monitoring protocol in three school districts in Northern California. The others present hypothetical school, clinic, and research situations that a speech language pathologist might encounter. (Author/CR)

This book presents a method for the qualitative assessment of text difficulty, a method that relies on a total impression rather than on an analysis of text features. The method is based on matching samples of text to exemplars that have been scaled for comprehension difficulty. These exemplars range in difficulty from those suitable for the…

The article examines the available means of determining the readability of written materials and reviews the empirical evidence that indicates consideration of syntactic complexity in determining readability. Problems with readability formulas are pointed out. Guidelines for using readability formulas that take syntactic complexity into account…

This booklet of information and accompanying reading selections are intended to help a tutor get started with a new adult learner. The booklet does not provide suggestions for teaching strategies, but rather discusses conducting the initial assessment of learners, observing the student reading, categorizing the students into one of three stages,…

Answers questions most frequently asked about the cloze procedure; suggests using cloze exercises to gauge the suitability of reading materials, showing how the technique taps meaning derived from text and indexes both textual reading difficulty and students' comprehension ability. (AEA)

This guide outlines a model that adult educators can use to construct a test for their adult students, regardless of subject area, that is written at the students' reading level. The problems that written tests pose for trade and technical students in further education (FE) who have poor reading skills and the drawbacks of using commercially…

Noting that traditional measures of textbook difficulty and traditional measures of student reading ability suffer from a lack of correspondence, this booklet deals with the problems of (1) identifying the levels of conceptual difficulty of text materials, (2) identifying students' abilities to understand text materials, (3) matching the…

Intended for classroom teachers at all levels and for undergraduate students in teacher education programs that included a practicum or field experience, this book provides both a guide and a resource for meeting the needs of readers experiencing difficulty. This third edition continues to provide teachers with techniques for recognizing readers…

Intended for classroom teachers at all levels and for undergraduate students in teacher education programs that included a practicum or field experience, this book provides both a guide and a resource for meeting the needs of readers experiencing difficulty. This fourth edition focuses on providing teachers with techniques for recognizing readers…