Chronology | Current Month | Current Thread | Current Date |
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] | [Date Index] [Thread Index] | [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] | [Date Prev] [Date Next] |
ile.
I have been interested in these reading level measurements for a wh=
My son is now in the 6th grade and we've been carefully monitoring =his
reading level for years. BC's readability scores post listed theial
equations that are used to determine the "grade level" of the mater=
and it is easy to see that it is based purely on sentence structure=and
word length. *No conceptual understanding is needed.*into
Out of curiosity, I pasted in a section from one of my optics labs =
the Gunning Fog Index calculator and got 8.87. Yet, I feel comforta=ble
claiming that an average ninth grader is not going to understande
"ASE=3DAmplified Spontaneous Emission" even though they can read th=
words.hen
One place where I saw this flaw (before I figured out the equations
used for the calculations but was already suspicious) was when my t=
4th grade son brought home a book rated at the upper end of fourth =grade
- Phantom of the Opera. I figured that sure, he could read it, but?
would he understand the complex interplays of emotions and contexts=
Probably not. I figured that we'd wait until high school to read th=at.
On the other hand, a ninth grade rated version of "Swiss Familywas
Robinson" was easily read by him and pretty well understood when he=
only in 5th grade.to
The above text rated 8.25 - don't try to get your young children to
read it... :-)
I'll bet that Hake's posting could be rewritten to get a score of 8=
10 and be no more understandable to the non-specialist reader.l
John
P.S. I very much enjoy the detail in Hake's postings and am thankfu=
for the references.e
P.P.S. It is interesting to look at the "significant" figures in th=
online Fog Index analysis. All values have 1 to 3 sig figs except t=he
average number of words per sentence which has an absurd 10 signifi=cant
figures listed. (Maybe OK for a population but certainly not for a_______________________________________________
sample!)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
John E. Sohl, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics
Weber State University
2508 University Circle
Ogden, UT 84408-2508
voice: (801) 626-7907, fax: (801) 626-7445
e-mail: jsohl@weber.edu
web: http://physics.weber.edu/sohl/