ESL instructors generally use ready-made reading materials in commercially published coursebooks. However, it would be more effective for learners if ESL instructors are involved in developing reading materials for them. This is because they are closer, more sensitive and responsive to the needs of their learners and they are also aware of the…

The Common Core Standards for the English Language Arts (CCSS) provide explicit guidelines matching grade-level bands (e.g., 2-3, 4-5) with targeted text complexity levels. The CCSS staircase accelerates text expectations for students across Grades 2-12 in order to close a gap in the complexity of texts typically used in high school and those of…

This paper reports activities (as part of a university course in language teacher education on teaching reading) in which primary school student teachers (all ESL in-service teacher trainees) explored their own skills of determining textbook readability using an online software tool and a cloze test completed by two hundred and seventy-eight Grade…

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…

The study applied the Multi-Dimensional analysis used by Biber (1988) to examine the functional parameters of essays. Co-occurrence patterns were identified within an essay corpus (n=1529) using a linguistic indices provided by Co-Metrix. These patterns were used to identify essay groups that shared features based upon situational parameters.…

While the English language boasts a century of research into its most frequently-used words, no such attempt has ever formally been made in the Arab world. This pioneering study presents a list of 500 commonly-used words in the Arabic language based on compilations of words gathered from a number of popular reading series in Lebanon, spanning…

This article shares the experience of a teacher investigating the tension between a mandated literacy program and his desire to teach in response to his perceptions of students' needs. Qualitative teacher research methodology is used to study the impact of mandated literacy practices on teaching and learning; and to answer the question: how is my…

This study addresses the need in discourse psychology for computational techniques that analyze text on multiple levels of cohesion and text difficulty. Discourse psychologists often investigate phenomena related to discourse processing using lengthy texts containing multiple paragraphs, as opposed to single word and sentence stimuli.…

Curriculum-based measurement of reading (CBM-R) is used to estimate oral reading fluency. Unlike many traditional published tests, CBM-R materials are often comprised of 20 to 30 alternate forms/passages. Historically, CBM-R assessment materials were sampled from curricular materials. Recent research has documented the potentially deleterious…

This resource is part of a series produced by the Center for Standards and Assessment Implementation (CSAI) to assist teachers and those who support teachers to plan teaching and learning from College and Career Ready Standards (CCRS) for all students, including students with disabilities, English learners, academically at-risk students, students…

The development of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test involves input from educators across the state. The development process attempts to create an assessment that reflects the skills and content understanding of students at the tested grade level. This study attempts to determine other factors that can affect student performance on…

At the conclusion of their study on home pregnancy test kits, Valinas and Perlman (1982) suggested that the instructions accompanying the kits be revised to make them easier to read. A study was undertaken to determine the readability of the printed instructions accompanying five home pregnancy test kits (Daisy II, Answer, Acu-Test, Predictor, and…

To make it easier to use the Spache Readability Formula, this document provides tables that simplify the necessary calculations; it also includes instructions for the use of the tables. (TJ)

Demonstrates a procedure for simplifying the reading ease formula and procedures developed by Rudolph Flesch, with no loss in accuracy. (GW)

Describes the procedure for determining the readability of a book or article in terms of approximate grade level. (CHC)