DOUGLAS COLLEGE INTER OFFICE MEMO

& TO: All Faculty : Date: Aug. 27/76

From: Reading Consultants: Al Atkinson (N215)
Sandra Carpenter ($259) DOUGLAS Ban

IBR
RE. Readability of Textbooks ARCHIVES said

With the school year about to begin, we thoughtyou might be interested in
measuring the reading difficulty of your textbooks. This is one of the
easier-to-apply readability formulas. If you would like to discuss your
findings with one of the reading instructors, please feel free to ¢all - or
else drop by the Reading Labs and see what materials and assistance we have
to offer your students.

1. Count off 10 sentences at the beginning, 10 in thé middle
and 10 at the end of an article;

2. Count every word of 3 or more syllables in your 30 sentences.

3. Estimate the square root of the sum of your big words.

4, Add 3 to the square root.

This equals the grade level.

In addition, you may want to consider one of Rudolph Flesch's reference charts
for determining difficulty of material.

 

Level of Words in Number of Typical Estimated | Percent
Difficulty Average syllables Magazine Grade of
Sentence per Level USS:
100 words Adults

 

= —— =.

 

Very Easy 8 or less 123 Comics 5th ae
86

80

Easy 1 131 Pulp fiction 6th
Fairly Easy 14 139 Slick fiction | 7th
Standard 17 147 Digests 8th & 9th 75

Fairly
Difficult 2) 155 Quality 10th - 12th 4O

Difficult 25 167 Academic 13th - 16th 2h

Very Diffi-| . 29 or more 192 Scientific Graduate hy
cult