Readability Checker
Paste English text to get its Flesch Reading Ease score and US grade level, plus four other standard formulas, and see which sentences drag the score down.
Runs entirely in your browser. Your text is not uploaded.
Flesch Reading Ease
Paste some text to score it.
How to use the readability checker
- Paste at least a few sentences of English text; 100+ words gives steadier scores.
- Read the Flesch Reading Ease score (higher is easier) and the grade levels.
- Shorten the highlighted long sentences and swap long words, then watch the scores change.
Questions
What is a good Flesch Reading Ease score?
Rudolf Flesch's original scale runs roughly from 0 to 100. 60 to 70 is "plain English" that most adults read comfortably; 70+ suits general web copy; scientific papers often score under 30.
How is the Flesch Reading Ease score calculated?
206.835 − 1.015 × (words ÷ sentences) − 84.6 × (syllables ÷ words). Longer sentences and longer words both lower the score.
What is the Flesch-Kincaid grade level?
A version of the same idea developed for the US Navy in 1975 that gives a US school grade: 0.39 × (words ÷ sentences) + 11.8 × (syllables ÷ words) − 15.59. A score of 8 means an average 8th grader should follow it.
Why do readability checkers give different numbers?
Every tool estimates syllables and sentence ends with its own rules, and the formulas weight different things: Gunning Fog and SMOG count words of three or more syllables, Coleman-Liau and ARI count letters instead of syllables. Expect a spread of a grade or two.
Does it work for languages other than English?
The formulas and the syllable estimate were built for English. Scores for other languages are not meaningful.