Directions:

1. Select samples of 100 words.
2. Find y (vertical), the average number of sentences per 100-word passage (calculating to the nearest tenth).
3. Find x (horizontal), the average number of syllables per 100-word sample.
4. The zone where the two coordinates meet shows the grade score.

Fig. 11. The Fry Readability Graph as amended in 1977 with the extension into the primary and college grades. Scores that appear in the dark areas are invalid.

The Listening Formulas People have been concerned about the clarity of spoken language perhaps for a longer period than written language. Speech is generally much simpler than text. Because a listener cannot re-read a spoken sentence, it puts a greater demand on memory. For this reason, "writing like you talk" and reading text aloud have long been methods for improving readability. Studies of the correlations of listenability and readability have had mixed results (Klare 1963).

Some formulas have been developed just for spoken text. Rogers (1962) published a formula for predicting the difficult of spoken text. He used 480 samples of speech taken from the unrehearsed and typical conversations of students in elementary, middle, and high school as his data for developing his formula. The resulting formula is:

G = .669 I + .4981 LD - 2.0625

Where:

G = reading grade level

I = average idea unit length

LD = the average number of words in a hundred-word sampling that do not appear on Dale's long list (3,000 words).

Rogers formula has a multiple correlation of .727 with the grade level of his samples.

Irving Fang (1966-1967) used newscasts to develop his Easy Listening Formula (ELF), shown here:

ELF = number of syllables above one per word in a sentence.