Reviews readability research and suggests priorities for future research in the area. (MKM)

Provides guidelines for analyzing and evaluating textbooks based on their comprehensibility rather than their readability. (MKM)

A survey of the current research on readability formulas is presented in this paper, which distinguishes this research from research on the more general questions that surround formulas: What features of a text, particularly the language it is written in, make the text easy or difficult to read? and, What will predict that readers with particular…

Readability formulas were originally conceived of as being evaluative measures. However, if a text is being rewritten or revised so that it matches a particular level of ability in its intended readers, it is rather inescapable that readability formulas will influence the changes made. Tacitly or not, formulas now are used to diagnose what causes…

Lists the dangers of readability formulas and concludes that while they may be a necessary evil, they should not be used as the underlying structure of a reading program. (FL)

This review of findings in the field of readability research discusses the differences in meaning between readability and legibility, examines the origins and developments of readability formulas for children's and adult materials, and describes several of the best-known formulas for English-language materials. (46 references) (Author/LRW)

The papers included in this collection represent as closely as possible the content and organization of the oral presentations delivered at a March 1980 conference on the use of readability formulas. The papers discuss the following topics: (1) an introduction to the conference, with general remarks on the uses and criticism of readability…

Presents a brief history of readability formulas (discussing their capabilities and liabilities) and synthesizes current readability research for teachers who want to use readability principles in their work and who want to teach these principles to their students. Contains a table of the most commonly used formulas that lists their variables,…

Describes recent Austrian research concerning readability formulas, especially the Swedish Lix formula. Describes a prototype for a system of evaluating the individual variables that contribute to the difficulty of student reading materials. (FL)

The failure of readability formulas can be attributed to three weaknesses in the formulas. First, they ignore or violate current knowledge about the reading process. Most formulas affect only sentence length and word difficulty while ignoring factors that influence text comprehensibility, such as cohesion, the number of inferences required, the…

Examines the practical side of readablility in the United Kingdom as well as some theoretical considerations focused on research on text difficulty, microcomputer prediction of difficulty, validity of cloze procedure, and the effect when students rewrite textbook prose. (HOD)

This paper reviews seven research studies on the subject of readability. The first study reviewed is itself an extensive review of 30 readability formulas described by George A. Klare. Of these, five formulas considered to be interesting, unusual, or classic on the basis of high validity, simplicity or complexity, common or uncommon variables, and…

Writing, editing, and printing texts for schools has been the accepted role of publishers, while text researchers have concentrated on typography, content, and readability. The hundreds of readability formulas now available make readability the most sophisticated of these three areas. Research in reading comprehension suggests that publishers…

It has been customary to simplify texts to increase their readability for young readers. Recent studies suggest that it is the predictability of texts that is the key to their readability and that simplification may actually create problems for the reader. (RBW)

Describes research conducted in France on text readability and suggests that readability formulas give high scores to redundant texts that have no great interest and penalize texts with original information. Argues that a coefficient should be incorporated into readability formulas that reflects the nature of the text. (MKM)