Book Leveling

Have you ever wondered how you tell at what grade level a book is written? The Gunning-Fog Index is a quick, simple way to pretty accurately determine how hard a text is. This can help tell you whether the materials you are choosing for your student are appropriate for his/her reading abilities. The following are the steps for applying the Index:

Gunning-Fog Index

1. Select a sample

2. Determine the average number of words per sentence

3. Determine the percentage of hard words

4. Add the 2 factors and multiply by 0.4

Note: Do not take samples from the very beginning or end of chapters. Avoid sampling material that is not typical of continuous matter; that is, avoid sampling titles, heading, and vertical lists. Do not sample dialog unless it is typical of the content.

Hard words: A hard word is usually any word of three or more syllables. Count a hard word only once in each sample (if a hard word appears several times, only count the first occurrence). Do not count any three-syllable made up of a two-syllable word and one of the following endings: -s, -es, -‘s, -s’, -ed, -ing, -er, -est, -ly. A hard word does not include acronyms, proper names, numbers, or three-syllable compound words (e.g. anyone, everything, or another).

Sample

In general, construction of pictograms follows the general procedure used in constructing bar charts. But two special rules should be followed. First, all of the picture units used must be of equal size. The comparisons must be made wholly on the basis of the number of illustrations used and never by varying the areas of the individual pictures used. The reason for this rule is obvious. The human eye is grossly inadequate in comparing areas of geometric designs. Second, the pictures or symbols used must appropriately depict the quantity to be illustrated. A comparison of the navies of the world, for example, might make use of miniature ship drawings. Cotton production might be shown by bales of cotton. Obviously, the drawings used must be immediately interpreted by the reader.

Computation

129 words in 10 sentences = asl (average sentence length) of 13 words

26 hard words out of 129 = 20%

Average sentence length 13.0

Percentage of hard words 20.0

Total 33.0

Multiply by 0.4

Grade Level of Readership 13.2

Visit http://www.readabilityformulas.com/gunning-fog-readability-formula.php for more information about the Gunning-Fog Index.

Visit http://www.usingenglish.com/resources/text-statistics.php to input text directly into a text box and automatically receive statistics about the text, including the Gunning-Fog level.