Lists the dangers of readability formulas and concludes that while they may be a necessary evil, they should not be used as the underlying structure of a reading program. (FL)

Describes two modifications to the SMOG Readability Formula designed to make it more useful for primary and intermediate grade materials. (FL)

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…

This article explores the relationships between vocabulary knowledge and text readability. It discusses how procedures used by readability formulas to assess the vocabulary factor can over- or underestimate text difficulty by counting syllables rather than assessing what the reader knows about the words in a text. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

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)