Reading Assessment and Readability Tests and Tools

READING RESOURCES ONLINE

How do you provide the right level of materials for a student's reading level on the net for free?

-> Determine the Readability Score of this page
or use this Readability Test Tool they both gave the 7th grade level.

MOTIVATION IS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN
THE ONLY KEY TO LEARNING ANYTHING.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW - YOU'LL LEARN.

Lack of Motivation is a major reason students drop out of high school. "Many students who leave school don't do it because they can't do the work. They do it because they are not challenged by it and they are not motivated to learn. They get bored. < more >

San Diego Quick Assessment

Programs that Determine Reading Difficulty and grade level.

K-3 Reading Assessment Tool

Problem Word: Suggested Word :

Fry Graph Check the Readability of a Piece of Writing
easy-to-use readability graphs. You will find the directions on this site page.

Literacy | Reading Test | Reading Assessment

Also See

Flesch Kincaid

Flesch-Kincaid Formula

This is a US Government Department of Defense standard test 16.

(i) Calculate L, the average sentence length (number of words ÷ number of sentences). Estimate the number of sentences to the nearest tenth, where necessary.

(ii) Calculate N, the average number of syllables per word (number of syllables ÷ number of words).

Then grade level = ( L × 0.39 ) + ( N × 11.8 ) - 15.59

So Reading Age = ( L × 0.39 ) + ( N × 11.8 ) - 10.59 years.

Databases of Leveled Books .

Before you buy that textbook research it with The Textbook League .

LITERATURE - ONLINE READING RESOURCES - FOR THE CLASSROOM OR AT HOME

Reading Level Assessment: Programs that determine Reading Difficulty

Rick Bennett said: "There are no programs to measure reading difficulty level -- in reality they are just formulas that give a number that gives an indication of reading difficulty. You plug in the numbers and do the math and presto -- you have a reading level. Computerized programs just do the plugging in and the math for you."

LITERACY | Fleish-Kinkaid Level

THE COMPUTER PROGRAM "WORD" has a reading level -- it is an option on the spell-grammer check. It gives you the Fleish-Kinkaid level. I have started using it as a rough guide whenever I make up worksheets for the kids. I also occasionally use it to get the reading level of textbook passages to determine whether a child is a poor reader or whether the text is just too difficult for the age/grade of the child.
I also use it to give me an estimate of writing development. I type in the child's passage and get a reading level of that. It may not be quite cricket -- but it gives me a way of measuring growth over time. ANY reading teacher should be able to give you several different formulas you could use and some have been put on a disk. Be very aware that all of these programs are mathematical in nature, not literary. They measure such things as number of letters in a word, number of words in a sentence, number of sentences in a paragraph, etc. They do not tell you that a boy in fifth grade cannot read a book with a sixth grade reading difficulty level. Because he probably can -- if that book has to do with airplanes, or football, or snakes, or any other subject he cares about.
I do think reading levels should be run on all textbooks. After we bought our sixth grade history text we ran some reading level formulas and found out that it has a reading difficulty level of tenth grade. Keep this in mind also. Because of the mathematical way all of these formulas compute difficulty, both of the following passages will have the same reading difficulty level.

PASSAGE ONE:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal: that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

PASSAGE TWO:
Happiness of pursuit the and liberty, life, are these among that; rights unalienable certain with creator their by endowed are they are that: equal created are men all that, self-evident be to truths these hold we.

reading programs, literacy programs, microsoft word Also See:


QUICK READING LEVEL ASSESSMENT TOOL

Reading and Readability Resources

Reading and reading online Readability Tools

Online Literature

Where Do Words Come From

Important Articles written by Experts on American Dialect Speakers

"Ebonics in My Backyard," by John R. Rickford

" The Ebonics controversy in my backyard: A sociolinguist's experiences and reflections ,"
"Using the Vernacular to Teach the Standard," "Suite for Ebony and Phonics," "The Creole Origins of AAVE: Evidence from copula absence" and "Dialect Readers Revisited." by John R. Rickford

CNN reports on Ebonics: Dec. 24, 1996 , Education secretary: No federal funds for 'black English'
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Education Secretary Richard Riley repeated the government's position Tuesday that black English, or Ebonics, is not a distinct language from standard English and is ineligible for federal bilingual funding. Dec. 22, 1996 , Dec. 19, 1996

Talking the Talk : A Discussion of AAVE from 1994

Teaching About Dialects - Kirk Hazen, West Virginia University
The study of dialects offers a fascinating approach to learning about language. Ideally, by learning about how language varies geographically and socially, students will come to understand at least two basic facts about language: 1) that language changes over time, and 2) that language use is linked to social identity.

RESOURCES

Dialects in Education

Language Diversity

ERIC/CLL LANGUAGE LINK - An Online Newsletter From the
ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics

Thematic Reading Curriculum - Find out what this is and how to use it to teach reading in the k - 8 classroom.

What is Grammar?

Mary Newton Bruder, aka the Grammar Lady runs a free grammar hot line (800-279-9708 ) has a doctoral degree in linguistics, and she's written books, scholarly articles and newspaper columns on the English language. http://sundaygazettemail.com/News/News/200110073/

Bilingual Education Resources

Chronicling America , America's historic newspapers. Search and read newspaper pages from 1900-1910 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present .