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Introduction
Educationalists need to be able to assess the minimum reading age of certain books so that they can be appropriately catalogued, particularly for use with young children. You are probably aware that, for example, it is much easier and quicker to read one of the tabloids (e.g. 'The Sun') than one of the quality 'heavies' (e.g. ' The Guardian'). What factors influence the reading age of a book, newspaper or pamphlet? Of course, the whole concept of a designated reading age for a particular book is perhaps rather dubious. Nevertheless, the problem is a real one, and teachers and publishers do need to know the appropriate order for their reading books. There have been many attempts at designing a formula for finding the reading age of a text. Three such formulae are given below. 1. FORECAST formula where N is the number of one-syllable words in a passage of 150 words. 2. FOG index where A = no. of words in passage n = no. of sentences L = no. of words containing 3 or more syllables (exluding the'-ing' and 'ed' endings). 3. FLESCH formula where S = total number of syllables in 100 words W = average number of words in a sentence. This score is not a reading age but can be converted to one by using the table below.
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Exercises
Work out the answers to the questions below and fill in the boxes.
Click on the button to find out
whether you have answered correctly. If you are right then will
appear and you should move on to the next question. If appears then
your answer is wrong. Click on to clear your
original answer and have another go. If you can't work out the right
answer then click on to see the
answer. |
Just for Fun Choose one of your favourite books and decide what reading age it is intended for. Pick any passage from the book and determine the reading age using the three formulae you have been using. Which one do you think gives the most accurate indication of the reading of age the book? |