How to determine the reading level of educational material

Readability is a subjective term that can not be easily quantified. On the contrary, the determination of readability is more a matter of reviewing certain elements - the more of them there are, the easier to read the educational document. The level of reading is important because the content depends on it. A well-informed content is not useful if it is not well expressed; If a piece of educational material is written too dense or in an illogical and unclear way, the content becomes irrelevant because very few people will read it.

Steps to follow:

one

Find the reading level of Flesch-Kincaid, taking the average number of words per sentence and multiplying it by 1, 015. Next, multiply the average number of syllables per word by 84.4, and subtract this number from the first result. Subtract the total figure to 206, 835. The closer the result approaches 100, the easier the material is to read . Of course, this is just an approximate baseline estimate to begin with.

two

Look at the width of the short lines. Very long lines make it necessary for the reader to turn his head completely, which slows down the whole process and reduces comprehension. This is one reason why newspapers and academic journals are often published in columns.

3

Look for a blank space. The blank plays a key role in reading - it should be enough to make a clear distinction between words, lines and sections. However, there can not be so much that it is not clear that one unit ends and another begins. This is a visceral reaction: simply read the text and ask yourself if you have noticed the blank space or not.

4

Look at the length of the paragraphs. Long paragraphs are difficult to read because they do not give the reader a "jump or cut". Shorter paragraphs make reading easier, although longer paragraphs are sometimes necessary depending on the content.