How to use the Fry Readability Graph.

The Fry Readability Graph is perhaps the best known of the readability measures available.


It's a very handy tool because it helps the teacher or speech-language pathologist to determine at which reading level a particular text is.


For instance, the storybook "Belinda" by Pamela Allen, is a grade 2 level text (year 3). We can predict, to some degree of accuracy, which grade level to target "Belinda" because of the reasonable reliability of the graph.


Of course, as stated elsewhere on this site, the most reliable measure of a text's level is for the student to read the story and the clinician then notes the level of difficulty.


The graph helps us to at least move in the right direction.


It's very useful for this fact alone.

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1) The clinician selects three 100 word passages from the target storybook.


2) The number of sentences in each 100 word passage are counted - start at the beginning of a sentence.


3) The number of syllables in each 100 word passage are counted - (option) photocopy text and mark each syllable.


4) Average the three sets of numbers for both sentences and syllables (Add three sets together, divide by 3, etc)


5) Use the average from the syllable data and plot on the horizontal (across) axis of the graph.


6) Use the average from the sentence data and plot on the vertical (up) axis of the graph.


7) The point where the two numbers correspond or meet, represents the readability level of the text.


Follow this link for an example and a print out of a Fry graph





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