How to Check the Reading Level of Any Web Content

Reading level estimates how much schooling someone needs to understand a text easily. Checking it helps you write for your actual audience, whether that's patients, customers, students or the general public.

The main formulas

• Flesch Reading Ease: a score from 0 to 100. Higher is easier; 60 to 70 is roughly plain English.
• Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: the US school grade needed, such as 8 for eighth grade.
• Gunning Fog: weighs long, complex words more heavily.
• SMOG: often used for health information.
• Coleman-Liau and ARI: count letters instead of syllables.

All of them mostly measure two things: sentence length and word length. They often disagree by a grade or two, so look at the range.

Targets for different audiences

• General public: about grade 8 or below.
• Health and safety information: health organizations often recommend sixth- to eighth-grade level for patient materials.
• Technical or professional readers: higher is acceptable, but simpler is still faster to read.

Free ways to check

1. Paste into a checker: the readability checker scores text with Flesch, Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, SMOG, Coleman-Liau and ARI at once, in your browser.
2. Microsoft Word: turn on "Show readability statistics" in Options → Proofing; Word shows the scores after a spelling and grammar check.
3. Hemingway Editor: a web app that highlights long, hard sentences and shows a grade level.

Check a live page

To check a published page, select the main article text, copy it, and paste it into a checker. Leave out menus and footers, which distort the result. Word Counter shows the words and sentences in any selection; dividing one by the other gives the average sentence length, a quick sign of difficulty. Around 15 to 20 words per sentence is comfortable for most readers.

Reading level vs reading time

Reading time tells readers how long a piece will take; reading level tells you how hard it is. A short article can still be tough going, and a long one can read easily.

What the scores miss

• Familiar long words: "information" scores as hard, though everyone knows it.
• Short but obscure words and jargon score as easy.
• Structure: headings, lists and examples help a lot but don't change the score.
• Meaning: a text can score well and still be confusing.

How to lower a score

1. Split long sentences.
2. Swap long words for common ones: "use" for "utilize".
3. Explain necessary terms the first time.
4. Use lists for steps and options.

See how readability affects engagement and structure and comprehension.