[erin-schonauer Posts: 3 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

Hello,

I learned that Word has a feature to analyze the reading level of a document. Does anyone know of other resources to help determine grade level reading based on text?

Thanks!

[David Wright Posts: 1,015 Status: Offline Tell me that again.]

There are resources online (like https://www.wordcalc.com/readability/ ) but that means posting your text to a site your don't know, and I don't recommend that. Grammarly and ProWritingAid also give reading stats. I assume Scrivener does, but I'm not sure.

What kind of resources are you looking for?

[JodyJS Posts: 1,316 Status: Offline Who you gonna call? EMERGENCY KITTENS! WWW]

I always use Renaissance Learning's ATOS analyzer. It's free and easy. Just paste your text into the box and push submit.

http://www1.renaissance.com/Products/Accelerated-Reader/ATOS/ATOS-Analyzer-for-Text/lang/english

[erin-schonauer Posts: 3 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

There are resources online (like https://www.wordcalc.com/readability/ ) but that means posting your text to a site your don't know, and I don't recommend that. Grammarly and ProWritingAid also give reading stats. I assume Scrivener does, but I'm not sure.

What kind of resources are you looking for?

Your recommendations are very helpful. I will look into them. Thanks so much!

[erin-schonauer Posts: 3 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

I always use Renaissance Learning's ATOS analyzer. It's free and easy. Just paste your text into the box and push submit.

http://www1.renaissance.com/Products/Accelerated-Reader/ATOS/ATOS-Analyzer-for-Text/lang/english

Great! Thanks so much for this information!

[JodyJS Posts: 1,316 Status: Offline Who you gonna call? EMERGENCY KITTENS! WWW]

Good luck!

[Debbie Vilardi Posts: 7,004 Status: Offline Language is so cool! WWW]

I always use Renaissance Learning's ATOS analyzer. It's free and easy. Just paste your text into the box and push submit.

http://www1.renaissance.com/Products/Accelerated-Reader/ATOS/ATOS-Analyzer-for-Text/lang/english

I was looking for this link yesterday. This is what educational publisher clients suggest I use. There is also a version that will do text of a whole book.

[martin-porter Posts: 4 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

I have used Hemingwayapp.com
It shows you where you have complex sentences; where you are using adverbs; when the voice is passive rather than active.
It also gives you an overall reading grade level.
I use it on a chapter per chapter basis to make sure that the reading comprehension level is consistent chapter on chapter.

[Debbie Vilardi Posts: 7,004 Status: Offline Language is so cool! WWW]

Interesting app. Can you give it the grade level you're shooting for? In works written for older students, sentences are expected to be complex.

[martin-porter Posts: 4 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

Hi Debbie
Hemingway doesn't allow you to select the reading grade - it bases it on what you input.
And it merely highlights where their are complex sentences etc. If it says that body of text is 5th grade level then it would highlight if it is complex for that grade level. If your writing was more complex and adult anyhow it would likely not flag it if it felt it was consistent with the overall piece
And it doesn't make any changes for you so it is totally subjective if you like that sentence you can ignore any of the suggestions.

[Debbie Vilardi Posts: 7,004 Status: Offline Language is so cool! WWW]

I like that it's looking at things that feel out of place and wouldn't just highlight everything. Thanks for the info.

[Sara Posts: 177 Status: Offline WWW]

Erin, perhaps you were asking for site suggestions, but another really useful resource in the CHILDREN'S WRITER'S WORD BOOK. It lists common words and their synonyms by grade level.

[louise-colligan Posts: 4 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

I'm a little late to the party, but here goes. Educational publishers used to use Lexile to determine reading level when I edited or wrote  educational books. Lexile scores help teachers choose instructional materials, though not necessarily fiction and non-fiction trade books. But Lexile guidelines can be helpful to a trade book writer. Sometimes just tweaking long sentences and sentence structure can help adjust a Lexile score so a book is more readable for a wider audience.  I always waited until a manuscript was finished to run the text through  Lexile. It can inhibit flow and style if you're too conscious of grade level as you're writing.


https://hub.lexile.com/lexile-grade-level-charts

[Debbie Vilardi Posts: 7,004 Status: Offline Language is so cool! WWW]

I'm a little late to the party, but here goes. Educational publishers used to use Lexile to determine reading level when I edited or wrote  educational books. Lexile scores help teachers choose instructional materials, though not necessarily fiction and non-fiction trade books. But Lexile guidelines can be helpful to a trade book writer. Sometimes just tweaking long sentences and sentence structure can help adjust a Lexile score so a book is more readable for a wider audience.  I always waited until a manuscript was finished to run the text through  Lexile. It can inhibit flow and style if you're too conscious of grade level as you're writing.


https://hub.lexile.com/lexile-grade-level-charts

I used to do this too, but Lexile is no longer free. This has actually caused some packagers and publishers to move away from it. Or they use ATOS and then a conversion chart.

[louise-colligan Posts: 4 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

Thanks for the update on Lexile. It used to be free for a limited amount of text.

[Debbie Vilardi Posts: 7,004 Status: Offline Language is so cool! WWW]

Thanks for the update on Lexile. It used to be free for a limited amount of text.

I know. I used to use it all the time.