Measuring readability
Extracts for analysis
A is an academic text for school students working up to level 2 of the national curriculum.
Kinleith Forest is a very busy place. During the day, forestry workers hack and saw noisily. Big trees crash to the ground. And logging trucks thunder along wide roads through the forest. At the same time, other workers are busy planting new trees. But when the sun goes down, things are just as busy. It is then that the night animals wake up. One of these is the long-tailed bat. I'm a scientist who studies long-tailed bats. There aren't many of these bats around. We're worried that they might all die out. To help save these bats we need to … [100 words]
(Moore, 2002, pages 20–21.)
B is intended for up to level 4 of the curriculum.
Ferns are usually very easy to identify from their leaves. Known as fronds, fern leaves tend to be very long. They're often divided into leaflets that are attached along a central stalk. Each leaflet is sometimes divided into even smaller leaflets. … In their leaves ferns harness the energy in sunlight to make simple sugars from carbon dioxide and water. Well, that's hardly big news in the plant world, but let's look more closely at the back of those fern leaves. There we often find sporangia, which are reproductive organs. In fact sporangia are so interesting that they deserve their own article. [100 words]
(Alchin, 2002, pages 10–11.)
C is intended for students in years 9 and 10
Vitamin D is essential for bone growth and health at all ages because it helps the body to absorb ingested calcium and to deposit calcium, with phosphate, into the skeleton. One natural source of vitamin D is exposure to sunshine. Vitamin D deficiency occurs in many regions of the world, including the northern European countries, northern Canada, and the Arctic. People who stay inside a lot (for example, elderly people) may also suffer from it.
Any calcium supplements should also contain vitamin D to ensure maximum absorption.
What is the influence of physical activity?
Young bones respond more to physical … [100 words]
(Osteoporosis New Zealand, 2001, pages 35–36.)
D is an academic text for university students and graduate teachers
Orientation refers to how learners view a task, the nature of the goals they form in order to perform it and the operations they use to carry it out. The particular orientation learners adopt determines the kind of activity that results. In part, how they orient to the task will reflect their previous experiences not just with similar tasks but with the kind of activity they associate with the particular setting in which they are communicating. In this way, how learners orientate to a task is socio-historically determined. Hall describes how the linguistic resources participants bring to an interaction and… [100 words]
(Ellis, 2003, page 187.)
