Text classification and text gradation are important for language teachers. Profiling and readability studies examine textual and linguistic features that determine text difficulty. Arabic, as an under-resourced language, suffers from a lack of such studies which results in material developers and textbook writers relying on their intuitions and…

Reviews the literature critical of readability formulas as used in second-language reading contexts. It is suggested that such formulas not be used as guides to text production/adaptation or as measures of the difficulty of naturally occurring texts. (Author/CB)

Examines the traditional criteria for evaluating first and second language reading texts. Proposes that, if reading is interaction between a text and a reader, variables related to the reader's side of the process, global textual properties, content characteristics, and rhetorical and discourse features should be considered before linguistic…