Return-Path: <nifl-health@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id fAHLZh006832; Sat, 17 Nov 2001 16:35:43 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 16:35:43 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <b2.1dc48a4.2928315a@aol.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-health@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-health@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-health@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: MarkH38514@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-health@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-HEALTH:3465] Re: In Search of Validation of Readability and Health ... X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Windows sub 138 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: O Content-Length: 1008 Lines: 20 Sandra: I haven't seen any information about the Flesch-Kincaid being set at a 5th grade level, thus making the grade level unreliable above that. The formula for the Flesch-Kincaid doesn't appear to limit its range: Grade Level = (0.39 x average sentence length in words) + (11.8 x average number of syllables per word) - 15.59 I came across a 20-year old study that compared 9 different readability formulas with respect to how they scored text samples from the Seattle Public Schools "Reading Inventory" (16 passages from preprimer through 12th grade.) The 9 readability formulas varied quite a bit in their assessment of grade level compared to the text actually used in a particular grade. [Schuyler, M.R. (1982) A readability formula program for use on microcomputers. Journal of Reading, 25(6), 561-591] This would be an interesting study to repeat, using larger text samples--the author was very limited by the amount of computer power available in the early '80s. Mark Hochhauser
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