The Fry Readability Program

To use the program:

You do not need to type, just tap certain keys as you read. Press 'n' for each syllable and 'm' at the end of each word. When you complete a sentence, press '.' and the program will work out the approximate readability level in whole years. Continue this until the value doesn't change with successive new sentences. To start again, press 'c'.

The value you get is based on Fry's graph (Fry, 1968). This covers the range from 6 yrs (or below) to 18 years (or above). I have checked it out against some common UK primary reading schemes such as Ginn 360 and Oxford Reading Tree and it seems to agree quite well with the publisher's age/level recommendations (within about a year). I also looked at the readability levels for the passages of the Neale Reading Analysis (Neale, 1989) and found that these were within about one year of the comprehension norms.

However, you should probably only use readability to compare the levels of different texts and to watch out for major mismatches, rather than make any precise judgments. Doing this, some primary schools have found that their general library books were at much too high a reading level for their average pupils (Hill, 1981). Studies of the readability of secondary textbooks (particularly Science) have also found that some are too hard for many pupils (Chiang-Soong and Yager, 1993).

Readability is not just the result of word and sentence length and you can find out more from an excellent on-line article written by Keith Johnson. This is practical as well as academically-based (with references) and looks at a number of readability measures with their benefits and drawbacks.

If you're interested in evidence-based approaches to education, then have a look at this site.

[Version 1.0, Martyn Long, 2000. This page can be saved and run off-line. It was written for IE5 and Netscape 4]

References:

Chiang-Soong, B. and Yager, R (1993) Readability levels of the science textbooks most used in secondary schools, School Science and Mathematics, 93, 1, p 24-27.

Fry, E. (1968), A readability formula that saves time. Journal of Reading, 11 (7), 265-71.

Hill, L. (1981) A readability study of junior school library provision related to children’s interests and reading abilities. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 51, 102-104.

Neale, M. (1989) Neale Analysis of Reading Ability - revised British edition. Berkshire: NFER-NELSON.

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