DETERMINING THE READABILITY OF A SAMPLE PASSAGE USING VARIOUS READABILITY FORMULAE

1. ROBERT GUNNINGS FOG INDEX :

Algorithm :
Take a sample passage containing about 100 words and count the number of words and sentences in the passage. Divide the total number of words in the passage by the number of sentences. We arrive at parameter called Average Sentence Length(ASL). Count the number of words with 3 or more syllables excluding (i) proper nouns (ii) combination of simple words (iii) hyphenated words and (iv) two-syllable verbs made into three syllables with es or ed ending. Divide this number by the total number of words in the passage to obtain Percentage of Hard Words(PHW). Add PHW and ASL. Then multiply the intermediate result by 0.4 to arrive at the Grade Level. Grade Level = 0.4 * ( ASL + PHW ) The intellectual capacity of the author of the passage is determined based upon the value of Grade Level. It is mainly used for calculating the readability of education material, hence, result is in terms of US Grade Level.

2. NEW DALE-CHALL READABILITY FORMULA:

Algorithm :
Take a sample passage containing about 100 words and count the number of words and sentences in the passage. Divide the total number of words in the passage by the number of sentences. We arrive at parameter called Average Sentence Length(ASL). Calculate the Percentage of Difficult Words(PDW) by comparing it to a list of 3,000 familiar and simple words.

 Compute Raw Score using the following equation : Raw Score = (0.1579 * PDW) + (0.0496 * ASL) + 3.6365 GRADE LEVEL 4.9 and below 5.0 to 5.9 6.0 to 6.9 7.0 to 7.9 8.0 to 8.9 9.0 to 9.9 10.0 and above ADJUSTED SCORE Grades 4 and below Grades 5 and 6 Grades 7 and 8 Grades 9 and 10 Grades 11 and 12 College College Graduate

3. THE POWERS-SUMNER-KEARL READABILITY FORMULA :

Algorithm :
Take a sample passage containing about 100 words and count the number of words and sentences in the passage. Divide the total number of words in the passage by the number of sentences. We arrive at parameter called Average Sentence Length(ASL). Count the number of syllables in the passage(NS). Apply the following equation to obtain Grade Level. Grade Level = (0.0778 * ASL) + (0.455 * NS) 2.2029 Reading Age is calculated using the following equation: Reading Age = (0.0778 * ASL) + (0.455 * NS) + 2.7971

4. FORCAST READABILITY FORMULA :

Algorithm :
Select a sample passage of about 150 words.

 Count N, i.e., the number of single-syllable words in the passage. Calculate Grade Level by applying the following equation using N from the step above. Grade Level = 20 (N/10) Reading Age is calculated as follows: Reading Age = 25 (N/10) years

5. SPACHE READABILITY FORMULA :

This formula is mainly finds its application in deciding the readability of passages from a primary grade level(third grade and lower).

Algorithm :
Take a sample passage containing about 100 words and count the number of words and sentences in the passage. Divide the total number of words in the passage by the number of sentences. We arrive at parameter called Average Sentence Length(ASL). Count the number of words in the passage which are not present in the Revised Spache Word List. Calculate Percentage Of Hard Words(PHW) by dividing the number obtained in step 3 by the total number of words in the passage and multiply by 100. Grade Level is then calculated as follows: Spache Readability Index / Grade Level = (0.141 * ASL) + (0.086 * PDW) + 0.839

Done by, Apoorva Chandra (1PI07CS016) Dheeraj.J.Shetty (1PI07CS029) Nitin Nagaraja (1PI07CS070).