Readability versus Leveling...

This is important in order to ensure that we select appropriate reading material for our struggling adolescents :-). Please click on the link below to learn more about Fry's readability formula.


Fry, E. (2002). Readability versus levelling. The reading teacher , 56 (3), 286- 291.


SUMMARY OF ARTICLE:
Readability versus leveling by Edward Fry is an insightful article that compares the merits of two procedures in assessing the grade level of, and therefore, the suitability of reading material for students. Fry starts by defining the two procedures arguing that Readability formulas give a numerical score that “corresponds to a suggested approximate grade level” (p. 286), while Leveling is similar but is more subjective and is used mostly at the beginning levels of readers.
He then delves into the history of readability and levelling, noting that although readability has been more popularized since 1923 and although it is widely researched in education, leveling has a longer history since 1836 (p. 286). He attributes the popularization of levelling in the United States to Marie Clay who used the Reading Recovery System for the first and second grade levels, when at the time there existed various readability formulas that measured “whole-grade designations at primary grades” (p. 287).
Fry notes that readability formulas test syntactic and semantic difficulty, and that they are so objective that they can be done by computers. In fact many commercial companies have added a “level of sophistication to readability by using computers” (p. 289). On the other hand, levelling is less objective, and seeks to compensate for the limitations of readability formulas by taking into consideration the appropriateness of the content for the age group, length of text, the use of pictures and vocabulary, whether or not the language used include repetitions, the reader’s background and the design of the page layout. He does note however, that readability covers a wide range up to grade 17, while levelling is used only for elementary levels. He concludes that readability is important to prevent struggling readers from becoming frustrated, but that levelling has the strength of taking into account more factors that traditional readability formulas ignore. He advocates that teachers should use a combination of these in order for students to have a “successful learning experience” (p.291).


COMMENTARY:
I have learnt much from this article. Although I was aware that some texts come with the recommended age/grade group, I was unaware that there were formal procedures for determining this. Not surprisingly, I was amazed that there exists computer software that can determine the readability of a text and that this is a huge commercial enterprise, since companies spend a lot of money investing in and using them.
Nevertheless, I share Fry’s view that both procedures can be combined to rectify the reading crisis in Trinidad and Tobago. As a person who will be charged with the responsibility of going out to implement remediation programmes for Secondary School students, it will be important to take into consideration their readability level, since these formulas are not just limited to primary level books. However, the content must be such that it appeals to teens, so that they will not feel humiliated by being forced to read texts designed for little children. This is where levelling will be useful. Furthermore, leveling will also allow me to select texts that will be relevant to our local social and cultural context, so that the children will find the material relevant and be able to identify with it. As Lee & Neal (1993) state, once students receive “appropriate instruction” (p. 278), they will learn meaningfully. I believe I can use readability and levelling to deliver instruction meaningfully to students so that they will become literate and have a passion for reading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fry_readability_formula