Presents a brief history of readability formulas (discussing their capabilities and liabilities) and synthesizes current readability research for teachers who want to use readability principles in their work and who want to teach these principles to their students. Contains a table of the most commonly used formulas that lists their variables,…

Describes recent Austrian research concerning readability formulas, especially the Swedish Lix formula. Describes a prototype for a system of evaluating the individual variables that contribute to the difficulty of student reading materials. (FL)

Provides a check list of evaluation criteria to supplement the SMOG readability formula in choosing new content area textbooks. (Author/KS)

A number of reading specialists are finding themselves testifying in court or writing expert opinions for court cases in such diverse areas as civil rights, criminal law, contracts, warranties, and due process. The validity of readability formulas was tested in the case of David v. Heckler. Another case involved a group of Florida prisoners who…

It is argued that informed judgments by a thoughtful teacher may have advantages over the application of a readability formula in assessing the linguistic difficulty of a text. Examples are given. (KC)

Because both adults and children have claimed Newbery books are difficult, this study sought to determine minimum reading level of 20 Newbery award winners by testing reading comprehension of fifth and sixth graders on each book. Only two books exceeded fifth- and sixth-grade reading levels. Book ratings are listed. (DS)

Explains why applying a readability formula to a content text is not enough to determine whether a student can read and understand the book. (MKM)

The matching of students with language learning disabilities and dyslexia to appropriate reading materials is discussed, and formal and informal methods are presented for determining reading levels for accuracy, fluency, and comprehension instruction and practice. The Spache Readability Formula, the New Dale-Challe Readability Formula, and…

Shows how a number of readability measures developed in English were applied to a textbook written in Hindi. Emphasizes that the more recent approaches to readability that focus on syntax, conceptual difficulty, and organization are a teacher's best help in selecting materials for students. (SR)

The purpose of this book is to introduce the research on readability, defined here as reading ease. The first part of the book covers how people read. A series of national literacy surveys show that the average person in the U.S. and most other countries are adults of limited reading skills. For example, the average adult in the U.S. reads at the…

This study investigated the effects of repeated readings on the reading abilities of 4, third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade English language learners (ELLs) with specific learning disabilities (SLD). A multiple baseline probe design across subjects was used to explore the effects of repeated readings on four dependent variables: reading fluency…

A study examined the relation between formula ratings and student perception of both readability and interest in developmental reading/study skills and intermediate composition texts. Subjects, 200 composition students and 96 study skills students, responded to the statements "this text was easy to read" and "the text chapters were…

A study examined 20 New Jersey daily newspapers to assess the impact of readability on circulation. It was hypothesized that the circulation of a newspaper would be inversely related to the readability level of its contents; that is to say, as reading material becomes harder to read, fewer people will read it. News pieces (divided into hard news,…

The failure of readability formulas can be attributed to three weaknesses in the formulas. First, they ignore or violate current knowledge about the reading process. Most formulas affect only sentence length and word difficulty while ignoring factors that influence text comprehensibility, such as cohesion, the number of inferences required, the…