Readability Scorer
Score English text with Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, SMOG, Coleman-Liau and ARI, plus word, sentence and complex-word counts. How it works
Use the Readability Scorer
About the Readability Scorer
A readability score estimates how hard English text is from the length of its sentences and words. Flesch Reading Ease usually falls between 0 and 100, and higher means easier; Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, SMOG, Coleman-Liau and ARI each give a US school grade, and the page averages those five. The sample text in the box, 45 words in 4 sentences with 70 syllables, scores 63.8 on Reading Ease (Plain English) and 7.2 on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level.
Flesch Reading Ease scores and what they mean
| Score | Label | School level |
|---|---|---|
| Above 100.0 | Easier than the table covers | Above 100: very short, one-syllable sentences |
| 90.0 to 100.0 | Very easy to read | 5th grade. Easily understood by an average 11-year-old student. |
| 80.0 to 89.9 | Easy to read | 6th grade. Conversational English for consumers. |
| 70.0 to 79.9 | Fairly easy to read | 7th grade. |
| 60.0 to 69.9 | Plain English | 8th and 9th grade. Easily understood by 13- to 15-year-old students. |
| 50.0 to 59.9 | Fairly difficult to read | 10th to 12th grade. |
| 30.0 to 49.9 | Difficult to read | College. |
| 10.1 to 29.9 | Very difficult to read | College graduate. Best understood by university graduates. |
| 10.0 and below | Extremely difficult to read | Professional. Best understood by university graduates. |
Bands from the Flesch-Kincaid readability tests article. The band follows the score shown to one decimal, so 89.96, shown as 90.0, is Very easy to read.
Scores for the text on this page
| Score | Value |
|---|---|
| Flesch Reading Ease | 63.8 |
| Flesch-Kincaid Grade | 7.2 |
| Gunning Fog | 8.9 |
| SMOG | 10.1 |
| Coleman-Liau | 8.5 |
| ARI | 5.8 |
| Average of the five grades | 8.1 |
45 words, 4 sentences, 70 syllables and 5 complex words. The text is under 100 words and 30 sentences, so the page shows both cautions.
Short samples, scored
| Text | Words | Sentences | Syllables | Reading Ease | Flesch-Kincaid Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The cat sat on the mat. | 6 | 1 | 6 | 116.1 | -1.4 |
| The platypus is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia. | 11 | 1 | 26 | -4.3 | 16.6 |
Frequently asked questions
- What is a good Flesch Reading Ease score?
- 60 to 70 is labelled Plain English, 8th and 9th grade. 80 and above is Easy or Very easy to read, and below 30 is Very difficult. Which is right depends on the readers: a children’s book and a legal contract should not score the same.
- Why is my readability score above 100 or below 0?
- The scores are not clamped. “The cat sat on the mat.” scores 116.1, and “The platypus is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia.” scores -4.3. Both are what the formula gives; very short or very dense text falls outside the 0 to 100 table.
- How long should the text be for a readability score?
- The formulas were designed for samples of about 100 words or more, and SMOG for 30 sentences or more. Below those the tool still shows every score but adds a caution.
- Which readability formula should I use?
- They all weigh sentence length against word length, measured differently. Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid count syllables. SMOG counts every word of three syllables or more, while Gunning Fog counts complex words: three syllables or more, leaving out proper nouns, hyphenated words and words that reach three only through -es, -ed or -ing. Coleman-Liau and ARI count letters. When they disagree, the Average of 5 card is the mean of the five grade scores.
- How are syllables counted?
- From spelling: vowel groups, a silent final e, the -ed and -es endings, and a list of irregular words. It is an estimate: complicated counts as 4 syllables and rhythm as 2.
- Does it work for languages other than English?
- No. The formulas were fitted to English. Text with more than 5% non-English letters gets a caution that the scores are not reliable, and text that is mostly Chinese, Japanese or Korean gets a caution that none of the counts are meaningful.
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