assesses the readability of texts based on two factors: sentence length and the number of "hard words" per sentence. It is commonly used in educational settings to find the reading level of books, handouts, and other materials. The grade levels on the graph range from 1 to 12, with 1 being the easiest and 12 being the most difficult. The formula assumes that longer sentences and a higher number of hard words make the text more challenging.
Our
Readability Scoring System will analyze English-language text and score the "reading ease" or "reading difficulty" of your text based on popular readability formulas. You'll find out the type of readers who are most likely to understand your text, including their grade level and age.
1. GET STARTED Paste your text into the text area or upload a .txt, .pdf, MS-Word, or html file from your computer. For other documents, copy the text to your device's clipboard, then paste into the text area.
2. FOR BEST RESULTS Make sure your text is spell-checked beforehand. Misspellings can alter results. Each sentence should end with a punctuation mark, otherwise run-on sentences can alter results. Abbreviated words should be correctly abbreviated (Mr. or Mrs. not Mr or Mrs). A clean, properly-formatted and grammatically-correct text will yield the best results.
3. SELECT A FORMULA If you don't know which readability formula is best suited for your text, then use our
Average Reading Level Consensus Calc. It will automatically select (9) popular formulas suited for all types of text. For a word-based formula, most writers prefer the Dale-Chall Formula because it can score any type of text. For a graph-based formula, the Fry Graph is widely-used. Otherwise, experiment with different formulas.
4. FINE-TUNE OUR SYSTEM Open the "System Settings" (below the formulas) and change default settings to fine-tune how the scoring system processes your text. Click on any [ ? ] to get more information about the option.
5. READY, SET, GO! When you're ready, hit the "Calculate Text Readability" button. Our system will analyze and score your text and output the information on a new page.
6. WORD STATS ONLY If you need a fast way to see "Word Statistics" for your text, import your text and click on the "Text Statistics" tab. The app will process your text and output important stats, such as syllable count, average sentence length, number of abbreviations, proper nouns, passive voice, etc.
To learn more about readability formulas and how they influence the way we write and edit, visit our website's
Articles Section.