Flesch-Kincaid Readability Statistics

[pt]

How accurate are the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Statistics (more
specifically- the Grade Levels)? I used one book (Ramona the Pest by
Beverly Cleary) and from one part I got Grade Level 8.8 and another part it
gave me 6.1. Do you have to do the book a number of times in different places
and take an average?
thanks!
Patti

 

[Dian D. Chapman, MVP]

I was under the believe that the average was 6th Grade? But I don't
know that much about it to know more details.

Dian D. Chapman, Technical Consultant
Microsoft MVP, MOS Certified
Editor/TechTrax Ezine

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[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Patti,

If you type Flesch in the ask a question box in Word
and select the 'Readability Scores' topic the formula
for calculating the results is given.

The explanation of what is checked for each of the
"Grammar and writng style options" is in Word 2003 help under that title

Generally about 200 words in a sample is suggested.
http://csep.psyc.memphis.edu/cohmetrix/readabilityresearch.htm

There are other 'readability' measures
http://www.readability.info/info.shtml
that will give different results

=========
How accurate are the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Statistics (more
specifically- the Grade Levels)? I used one book (Ramona the Pest by
Beverly Cleary) and from one part I got Grade Level 8.8 and another part it
gave me 6.1. Do you have to do the book a number of times in different places
and take an average?
thanks!
Patti>>
--
Let us know if this helped you,

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

For Everyday MS Office tips to "use right away" -
http://microsoft.com/events/series/administrativetipsandtricks.mspx

 

[pt]

Hi Bob,
Hmmm....didn't really help me......I teach a Spec Ed class of Learning
Disabled Students and I want to find a program that THEY can learn to use to
guide their reading choices. Most of them have their own scanners, so I have
them scan the page and apply the Flesch-Kincaid "option" from Microsoft.
Sometimes though, books are being rated too easy or too hard (or in some
cases, with multiple grades attached to one book.) Any suggestions? Are there
any programs out there that would help teachers (& kids) to level books more
accurately? thanks for all of your help!
Patti Tufford

 

[Gary Smith]

You can't analyze one page and expect it to accurately reflect an entire
book. To get a valid reading, you'd need to analyze a number of pages --
I'd guess for a book of typical size it would take ten or more, selected
from various parts of the book, to get a reasonably reliable result.

 

[pt]

Hi Gary- thanks- yes, I am having the kids do 5 different pages (and tying in
math by getting them to find the average!!). Do you know of any other
programs similar to this one? thanks! Patti

 

[Gary Smith]

I've never had occasion to need this sort of thing, so I'm not familiar
with the software or other programs that may implement it. The subject
caught my eye because I was a math major, although I've never used it
directly.

If the pages all have roughly the same amount of text, then averaging the
scores may give give an result that's reasonably close to correct. Without
knowing something about the method used the calculate the scores, the only
way you can be sure of a correct result is to combine the pages into a
single document and analyze it as a unit. Under the circumstances though,
the process of doing the math may be more valuable than getting a strictly
correct answer.