Mediawhirl: Google reading levels

Flesch–Kincaid readability tests

from Wikipedia,

yeah,

I KNOW!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch-Kincaid_readability_test

The Flesch/Flesch–Kincaid readability tests are readability tests designed to indicate comprehension difficulty when reading a passage of contemporary academic English. There are two tests, the Flesch Reading Ease, and the Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level. Although they use the same core measures (word length and sentence length), they have different weighting factors. The results of the two tests correlate approximately inversely: a text with a comparatively high score on the Reading Ease test should have a lower score on the Grade Level test. Rudolf Flesch devised both systems while J. Peter Kincaid developed the latter for the United States Navy. Such readability tests suggest that many Wikipedia articles may be "too sophisticated" for their readers.^[1]

more at link...

there's a software....
http://www.gnu.org/software/diction/

Google reading levels

February 16, 2011

More About Google's Reading Level Filter

Google's Daniel M. Russell has more information about the reading level filter, a feature recently added to the advanced search page.

The reading-level is based primarily on statistical models we built with the help of teachers. We paid teachers to classify pages for different reading levels, and then took their classifications to build a model of the intrinsic complexity of the text. (...) We also used data from Google Scholar, since most of the articles in Scholar are considered advanced.

So the breakdown isn't grade- or age-specific, but reflects the judgments of teachers as to overall level of difficulty. Roughly speaking, "Basic" is elementary level texts, while "Intermediate" is anything above that level up to technical and scholarly articles, a la the articles you'd find in Scholar.

That's not exact, but it's a fairly robust model that works across a wide variety of different text styles and web pages.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.ca/2011/02/more-about-googles-reading-level-filter.html

Google's UK newspaper reading level scores

http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/googles-reading-level-scores-newspapers/

Google’s reading level scores for UK newspapers

Google's launched a new feature that analyzes reading level scores for websites. Here are the scores for national UK newspapers, plus the overall verdict Google gives on the site's reading level.

There's no right score - it depends on the audience, of course. These are ordered by basic score - the order's fairly surprising (though that may say more about Google's scores ...)