Readability with Texts
As an English language arts teacher, you need to be constantly evaluating your students’ reading abilities. However, you cannot accurately do so unless the reading material is appropriate for the level of your students. Thus, you need to also evaluate that reading material. If the text is too difficult, your students will struggle, which leads to frustration and could even put them off reading altogether. On the other hand, if the material is too easy, you will not get an accurate account of their ability, and you won’t help them move forward and learn.
The teacher needs to find literature that will not only be at the right level of difficulty, but also cover the standards and interest your students. Think back to your own days in grade school. Did you ever feel forced to read a boring novel that you couldn’t relate to? We all have had those experiences. The truth of the matter is there will always be students who don’t enjoy reading simply because they are being forced to read. But if you choose something that is at their level with content that is interesting, you might be able to grab the interest of most of your students. This goes a long way to getting students to take an active role in their own learning. Now, let’s go over some of the ways to choose the reading materials that best fit your students.
Formulas
The first strategy is to use readability formulas to evaluate reading materials. There are several of these formulas, which consist of a kind of mathematical equation, which results in the grade level of the text. For example, after using the formula for the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, you get a ten. That means average tenth graders will be able to read this novel without much difficulty.
It’s important to note there needs to be some flexibility with results of these readability formulas. In this example, getting a ten does not mean all tenth graders will be able to read that novel easily. Also, some tenth graders will think it is way too easy. This is where you must analyze your own students and see if it’s a good fit for their abilities. Ideally, you want reading material to be just a step above their level. This way, they do not get overly frustrated, but the material is difficult enough to push them a little out of their comfort zone.
One of the most popular formulas is Fry’s formula, which measures readability level from grade one through college. This method includes reading extracts of around 100 words from whatever novel or reading material you want to evaluate. Then, you count the number of sentences and syllables in the extract. Then, you find the average length of the sentences and average number of syllables. Graph these numbers on a Fry’s Readability Graph, which will tell you the grade level of the text.
As you can see from Fry’s formula, readability formulas depend on sentence length and word difficulty to evaluate text. However, something to consider is that length might not correspond to difficulty. Some longer words are simple ideas, like gymnasium and Mississippi. Bear that in mind when using any readability formula.
Cloze Tests
A second method to determining the reading level of a piece of writing is a CLOZE test. A CLOZE test is a reading passage with blank spaces replacing some of the words. This kind of activity actually has many purposes, like evaluating a student’s ability, but it can also evaluate a reading passage. To do so, choose a passage from the text that is about 300 words. Delete about 50 words and replace them with blank spaces. Then, ask your students to fill in the blanks with the words they think should be there.
After the test is completed, divide the number each student got right by 50, which gives you a percentage. If the students are mostly scoring above 44%, then the text will be within their capabilities; some with instructional support depending on the student. If most of your students are scoring below 44%, then the text will be too difficult for them.
Although a CLOZE test is not a perfect science, it can be useful because it gives you a result particular to your exact students. You can even choose a number of passages from the same text to get a more stable result. Remember, CLOZE tests do not really tell anything about higher-level thinking or analysis. Also, these tests can cause some frustration, since the students will feel it unfair to be expected to know the right answer when they’ve never seen the passage before. However, if the teacher explains all this beforehand, usually the frustration is much less.
Text Evaluation Scales
Besides formulas and a CLOZE test, there are actually other text evaluations scales out there to measure the friendliness of any reading material. In this context, friendly refers to how accessible it is to students based on organization, conciseness and clarity.
These types of scales are much more involved and take more time than the first two strategies. There are some already developed scales, like Henry Singer’s Friendly Text Evaluation Scale, which you can modify for your purposes. Or, you can create your own scale based on the reading material you choose. Basically, these scales involve statements your students can rate on a scale of one to five. Five represents strongly agree and one is strongly disagree. Each statement focuses on some part of the text. For example, one statement that can measure the readability of a textbook on education could read, ‘The text contains headings and subheadings that divide the text into categories that enable readers to perceive the major ideas.’ After reading that textbook, the statement is rated on the one to five scale.
Once the scale is complete, add up the scores to get an average for each statement or for the scale overall. Higher scores imply a more friendly text and lower scores a less friendly text. Of course, the obvious downside of this method is that the student must read the text in order for you to evaluate it. However, you could always choose a short extract from the text and design your statements accordingly. Either way, these text evaluation scales can give a better idea of the personal interest your students might show in the reading material.
Lesson Summary
To review, teachers need to not only evaluate their students’ reading ability, but also the readability of the reading material. Text that is too difficult for students will cause frustration and lessened motivation. While text that is too easy might bore students and not allow for learning.
The first method for evaluating text is to use readability formulas, which consist of a mathematical equation that results in the grade level of the text. One example involves counting words and syllables in each sentence of an extract of text and using a graph to determine the grade level of the material. The downside to these formulas is that they rely on sentence and word length to evaluate text, but length does not always correspond to difficulty.
The second method is to use a CLOZE test. For this method, take an extract from the reading material and replace 50 of the words with blanks. Then, have your students fill in the blanks with the word they think fits. Average the results to find a percentage. Above a 44% means the text could be appropriate with teacher support. Below that score means the text could be too difficult. This strategy allows for a result more specific to your students.
The final method is to use text evaluation scales, which consist of a number of statements the students rate after reading the text. The statements are meant to judge how friendly a text is, which refers to organization, conciseness and clarity. There are predesigned scales you can find, or you might have to invent your own statements. You add up the scores to get an average for your scale; the higher the score, the more friendly the text.
Overall, as the teacher, you must decide how to evaluate the reading material you will ask your students to read. Each class and even each student has different abilities and needs. Use these methods and your own judgment to choose appropriate reading materials to meet your students’ needs.