How to Use a Reading Level Tool

A reading level tool measures the average grade level needed to read a book, article or other piece of text. There are a number of different readability tests, such as Dale-Chall, Fry, FOG, SMOG, Forcast and Gunning-Fox. The easiest to use, however, are the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and the Flesch Reading Ease tests built into Microsoft Word.

Things You'll Need

• Microsoft Word, 2007 or later

Instructions

Use a Reading Level Tool

1. Type or copy the text into Microsoft Word. If the text is too long to type in, choose three 100-word passages from the beginning, middle and end of the text and type those in.

2. Click the "Microsoft Office" button. Then click "Word Options" and "Proofing."

3. Place some checks. Put a check in the box next to the "check grammar with spelling." Next, look under "When Correcting Grammar in Word," and place a check next to the box that says "Show Readability Statistics."

4. Read the Flesch Reading Ease score. The Flesch Reading Ease scale measures text on a scale from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the easier the text is to read.

5. Examine the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score. The score indicates the minimum amount of education needed to understand the text, ranging from 0 (for kindergarten) to 12 (for 12th grade).

Tips & Warnings

• See resources for information on other ways to assess readability.

• Reading level tools are not perfect. They assume short sentences with short words are easier to read, which may not always be the case.

References

• Microsoft Support: About the Grammar Checker

Resources

• Discovery Education: Kathy Shrock's Guide to Readability