Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Fry Graph: How to Calculate Your Own Readabilty

In this reading, by author Edward Fry, he talks about the importance of readabilty versus leveling. As stated in this article, readabilty and leveling are procedures that can help teachers select books for readers at different stages. As the working definition, readabilty is denotated as the ease of comprhension because of the style of writing; and selecting books to match the competencies of a reader or writer.
The history and background of the readabilty formula and leveling in the United States of America was founded in the year of 1923. As time progressed, readabilty and leveling increased as well and was better developed by professional writers. Researchers have found that most traditional readabilty formulas are based off of two measures; syntactic difficulty, meaning grammatical complexity, and semantic difficulty, which is meaning or word meaning. Many say that readabilty formulas are objective, however, leveling is quite different than readabilty formulas. Leveling takes a vast number of text suppoting factors into consoderation such as content, illustrations, length, curriculum, and language structure. Content deals with whether or not it is appropriate or familiar to the age group or audience. Illustrations specifically discuss whther the pictures tell the story or not. Length deals with the number of pages pertaining to the reading. The curriculum deals with if the levels deal with the teaching methods or framework? Lastly, the language structure deals with whether there are repetitious wording or phrases.
This is an appropriate example of how to calculate your on readability into a fry graph:
Randomly select 300 words from a passage or article and plot average number of syllabals and average number of sentences per 100 words to determine the grade level of your material. Count proper nouns, numericals, and symbols as words and count a syllabal for each symbol. When ploted into a graph after calculating the average, you can plot your points and determine the grade level of your readabilty.

14 comments:

  1. I thought this article was really interesting because I've never really thought about how reading levels were determined. I also liked that how to calculate your readability was included. I've always just gone with the flow and assumed that if I could read a higher level then well, good for me. I never thought it was a big deal or really paid any attention to the concepts. I think the way to calculate your readability was also interesting. Who knew that there was such a thing as a Fry graph?

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  2. When reading this article, I really got into what I was reading. This is a very clever way of dtermining your reading level. Usually, I always thought that how much a person reads and how they comprehend the material was what determined your reading level. I felt that this process is a interesting way to find out about your reading level and how you can improve it.

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  3. This article was really interesting. I hadn't recently thought about how your reading level was determined, but this makes sense. In middle school, students were involved in an Accelerated Reader program that set a certain reading level off of of a test. The test was based off of the materials discussed in this article. The program seemed helpful and promoted reading, so a student could meet his/her goal.

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  4. I have not always been a really good reader, so this article made it clear on haw a reading level is determined. I felt like this process is very straight forward and simple. I would have never thought in a thousand years that i could calculate my readability. It is just cool to see where you stand reading wise, i hope i can become better and better as time goes on.

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  5. It would be amazing to find out my level of readability. I think that this is a very effective way to find out the level of someones education, and that it can be used to provide a better base of understanding to those who are wanting to learn more, but do not know where to start. The idea of ranking an education is not a foreign one. Our country was built off of the fact that people wanted to learn more and educate themselves to the fullest, and to level themselves on an even playing field, and start again.

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  6. This article was really interesting finding out that you can calculate your readability. I also learned a lot about leveling while reading this article. Who would have ever known there is a formula for readabilty? I am going to try and use the information i learned to increase my reading level.

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  7. Caculating readability is something that is not known by everyone, and it is something that not all people should have to know about. I believe if a person wants to read a certain novel or book they should give it a shot no matter how long or whether or not pictures are involved. If you are interested in a subject you should do everything in your will power to learn more and that may include having a difficult time reading a story. Yet the Fry graph could be useful for English teachers and others who are interested in statistics of that sort.

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  8. Knowing what level that you read on is very important. A lot of people are not familiar with calculating their readability. This method can be very important to teachers to help students get better at reading. This is my first time hearing about a Fry Graph. When I were in elementary school this method would of been great. Even though I have always been a good reader.

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  9. I think that if everyone calculated their readability then it would be much easier for someone to see where improvement is needed. There's always room for improvement and if one was to calculate his/her readability then they would be able to. I think that the Fry graph good be great for all teachers teaching any subject because regardless of the course, there's always statistics.

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  10. This article is really interesting, expecially for future teachers. As a teacher, you are always going to have students that are on different reading levels. I never knew how these were determined though. Also, a student's level needs to be determined each year, so that the teacher can teach on a level that is appropriate for all. By testing the reading level each year, the teacher can eliminate stereotypes in the classroom. A child's level may change drastically in one year. The reading level is something that a teacher may want to keep in mind when teaching.

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  11. So many instances I thought that reading levels were determined by individuals scores on standardized test (which I really hate). The isat, SAT, and ACT I thought were tests that determined the level of reading you were in. The tests themselves, in my opinion were always terrible methods of telling how smart a student was in a certain subject.

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  12. While reading this article I learned a lot about how reading levels are calculated. I think it's very important for teachers to know what reading level his or her students are on. If a student is in a classroom where they are not being challenged they are going to be bored and could potentially not do very well in the class. Also if a student feels overwhelmed or behind the rest of the class they may not try very hard in the class. If a teacher knows what level the students are on they can give them material at their reading level and prevent potential problems.

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  13. Im not sure how accurate the fry graph is but I think it would be nice to calculate your readability. As someone who writes, this could be valuable information on reaching out to audiences and also improving as a writer.

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  14. I thought the article was interesting. While I am skeptical as to the accuracy of the fry graph, I found it very interesting to calculate my own readability.

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