Readability

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Readability

• Eyeball readability
• Informal testing (IRI cloze)
• Readability formulas
• Reading scales

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Approaches to Readability
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Cloze Reading Levels

• 61 IND
• 40 - 60 INST
• 40 FRS

4
Maze Reading Levels

• 85 IND
• 60 - 75 INST
• 50 FRS

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Readability Formulas

• Fry
• Raygor
• (Dale-Chall)

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Fry Readability

• Sample passages (3 100-word passages, no proper
  nouns, initializations, and numerals).
• Count sentences, estimating sentence length of
  the nearest tenth.
• Count syllables (put a mark above every syllable
  and count the marks.)
• Plot average sentence length and average number
  of syllables as a point on the chart.
• If sample counts vary widely, use more samples.
• A word is a group of symbols with a space on
  either side thus, Joe, IRA, 1945, and are each
  one word.
• A syllable is defined as a phonetic syllable.
  Generally, there are as many syllables as vowels.
  sounds. For example, stopped Is one syllable and
  wanted Is two syllables. When counting syllables
  for numerals and InitiaBzations, count one
  syllable for each symbol. For example, 1945 is
  four syllables, IRA is three syllables, and is
  one syllable.

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Fry Readability
?
?
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Raygor Readability

• Sample passages (3 100-word passages, count
  proper nouns, dont count numerals).
• Count sentences, estimating sentence length of
  the nearest tenth.
• Circle words with 6 or more letters (i.e., long
  words)
• Plot average sentence length and average number
  of long words on the chart.

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Raygor Readability
?
?
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Sample Readability
As reading development continues, the simple
strategies of using known sight words, decoding
by sound analogy, and thinking about the facts of
a story are no longer sufficient to gain meaning
from text. Because sentences are longer and more
complex, children must use new strategies to
interpret text. Developing readers respond with
new strategies. At this stage, fluent word
identification is necessary in order to allow
more thinking capacity for word, sentence, and
idea meaning. Because words with multiple
meanings are used in the text, students must use
more than decoding by analogy to figure out
unknown words. Using sentence context to decode
unknown words and to develop word meanings
becomes a major task for these readers.
(100 words
to this mark.) Calculate Fry and Raygor
readabilities for this passage.
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Sample Fry Readability
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SampleRaygor Readability
?
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Note areas of both charts That identify invalid
results.
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Flesch-Kincaid (Word)

• Sentence complexity
• words in sentence
• Word difficulty
• syllables per word

• Using Flesch-Kincaid Readability in Word
• Select
• Tools
• Options
• Spelling and Grammar
• Check
• Show Readability

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Online Readability Measures

• http//www.online-utility.org/english/readability_
  test_and_improve.jsp
• Copy and paste a document sample and get multiple
  readability levels
• http//www.harrymclaughlin.com/SMOG.htm
• SMOG readability levels
• http//juicystudio.com/services/readability.php
• Enter a webpage address and get multiple
  readability measures brief overviews of
  readability measures
• http//www.lexile.com
• Enter book titles to get Lexile level (translate
  to grade level using chart under FAQ)