This study examined the effects of passage and presentation order on progress monitoring assessments of oral reading fluency in 134 second grade students. The students were randomly assigned to read six one-minute passages in one of six fixed orders over a seven week period. The passages had been developed to be comparable based on readability…

This paper reports activities (as part of a university course in language teacher education on teaching reading) in which primary school student teachers (all ESL in-service teacher trainees) explored their own skills of determining textbook readability using an online software tool and a cloze test completed by two hundred and seventy-eight Grade…

Background: Readability tests are indicators that measure how easy a document can be read and understood. Simple, but very often ignored, readability statistics cannot only provide information about the level of difficulty of the readability of particular documents but also can increase an evaluator's credibility. Purpose: The purpose of this…

Curriculum-based measurement of reading (CBM-R) is used to estimate oral reading fluency. Unlike many traditional published tests, CBM-R materials are often comprised of 20 to 30 alternate forms/passages. Historically, CBM-R assessment materials were sampled from curricular materials. Recent research has documented the potentially deleterious…

At the conclusion of their study on home pregnancy test kits, Valinas and Perlman (1982) suggested that the instructions accompanying the kits be revised to make them easier to read. A study was undertaken to determine the readability of the printed instructions accompanying five home pregnancy test kits (Daisy II, Answer, Acu-Test, Predictor, and…

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

Describes study that was conducted to assess the readability of reference books recommended for use with children. Children's encyclopedias, adult encyclopedias, and subject reference books are analyzed, and linguistic analysis summarized in a reading formula and propositional analysis are used to measure idea density level. (50 references) (LRW)

Examines the procedure for applying the Fog, Flesch, and Fry readability formulas to the Internal, Powerful Others, and Chance Scales and for modifying the instrument for use with adult basic education (ABE) students. (Author/CH)

Special education elementary students (N=271) were tested on three reading passages; six readability formulas were applied to the passages. Rank orderings of the passages based on readability formulas failed to agree with those based on students' actual performance. Implications for measuring students' reading proficiency and for selecting…

Research indicates that three samples may not give a good indication of a workbook's narrative readability level. (MKM)

Reports that the Fry readability graph can be adapted to measure Spanish readability at the primary level. (DD)

This paper describes the Harris-Jacobson Readability Formula A, a revision of a readability formula based on word lists from "Basic Elementary Reading Vocabularies." Section one of the paper discusses procedures for using the formula, including the selection of samples, scoring the variables, and applying the formula. The next section…

Used readability formulas to calculate the difficulty level of randomly selected passages from 16 parent education publications. Reading levels varied by three or four grades in 15 of the 16 publications. At least high school level reading ability would be required to comprehend 10 of the publications. (Author/NRB)

Describes a research study on the impact of readability of an annual report on the stockholders. Results of the study are presented along with implications for business teachers. Also examines the effectiveness of readability formulas. (CT)

Findings indicate that different readability formulas will not record the same degree of change in readability level if easier synonyms are inserted, sentences shortened, or text rewritten for simplification. (MKM)