What Is the Readability Checker?

The readability checker is an online readability calculator that tells you how easy or hard your writing/text is to read. It gives you three important pieces of information:

1. Reading level: This shows what grade level your writing is best suited for.
2. Readability score: This is the number that the selected method's score, computed.
3. Reading note: This gives you a quick summary of what the score or level means.

How to Measure the Readability Scores

1. Type or paste your text into the box. If you have a .txt or .docx file (Word document), click the upload icon in the top right corner of the text area to upload it instead.
2. Select the method for the readability test. By default, it is set to Flesch-Kincaid, the most commonly used text readability method.
3. After inputting the text and selecting the method, the readability score, reading level, and reading note will be displayed instantly. Also, you can see the word count and character count under the textarea.

How Do the Readability Formulas Work?

There are different readability tests to measure readability of your text. On this page, you can check readability scores with the Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog Index, SMOG Index, Automated Readability Index (ARI), and Dale-Chall Readability Formula.

Flesch-Kincaid

This formula looks at how long your sentences are and how many syllables your words have. Shorter sentences and words with fewer syllables usually mean easier reading. In other words, if the average number of syllables per word is low, it's considered more readable. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level also shows the U.S. school grade level needed to understand the text.

Gunning Fog Index

This one pays attention to sentence length and sentence structure too, but it also counts "complex" words, those with three or more syllables. Fewer complex words, simpler sentence structure (shorter sentences) mean an easier read.

SMOG Index

SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook) focuses on polysyllabic words (words with three or more syllable count) to determine readability.

Automated Readability Index

Automated Readability Index (ARI) formula is different from others. It uses the number of characters per word instead of syllables, which makes it unique.

Dale-Chall

This method uses a list of common words that most 4th grade students know. If your text uses a lot of words not on this list, it's considered harder to read.