The purpose of this article is to present qualitative and quantitative tools to assist teachers and authors of examination materials in their preliminary assessment of text complexity/difficulty according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The qualitative scales were compiled specially for this study, based on previous…

Background: Readability tests are indicators that measure how easy a document can be read and understood. Simple, but very often ignored, readability statistics cannot only provide information about the level of difficulty of the readability of particular documents but also can increase an evaluator's credibility. Purpose: The purpose of this…

Reveals that the Rauding Scale of Prose Difficulty provides results closer to Spache and Dale-Chall values than does the Singer Eyeball Estimate of Readability (SEER) technique. (FL)

Validity, the most critical of readability formula characteristics, requires that a measuring device actually measure what is intended to be measured. To examine validity, a study was conducted in which ten popular handbooks used in the teaching of college freshman composition were examined for comparative validity data--the extent to which scores…

The passage comprehensibility of three diagnostic reading tests--the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test, the Spache Diagnostic Reading Scales, and the Durrell Analysis of Reading Difficulty--was evaluated using the following text variables: content familiarity, vocabulary, the number of idea units in the text, the number of text-based inferences…

The Flesch reading formula is questioned as being appropriate for evaluating college economics textbooks. The Dale-Chall, Modified Dale-Chall, Fry, and Flesch formulas were used to evaluate nine introductory textbooks. There was little or no consistency in either the absolute reading levels or the rank orderings. (Author/AM)

This paper reviews seven research studies on the subject of readability. The first study reviewed is itself an extensive review of 30 readability formulas described by George A. Klare. Of these, five formulas considered to be interesting, unusual, or classic on the basis of high validity, simplicity or complexity, common or uncommon variables, and…

Reports that reading instructional level scores of a teacher constructed informal reading inventory, the commercially prepared Basic Reading Inventory, the Metropolitan Achievement Test, and students' actual level of placement in books are roughly comparable but that the Wide Range Achievement Test reading subtest places children much higher. (FL)