Fry's Readabilty Index

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Fry Readability Formula I used Fry’s Readability Formulas to determine the age and grade level of the book I had chosen for my unit plan. The book I chose was Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist. I picked three sections from this book at random. The first section is on pg 73 at the bottom of the page it starts with the sentence “The boy began again…”. The next section is on page 75 starting with the sentence “But all this happened for one basic…”. The last section is on page 83starting with “Then one day the boy returned the books…”. After counting the number of sentence and syllabus from each passage I came up with the number listed below in the chart. Number of Sentences Number of Syllables First 100 Words 5 143 Second 100 Words 4 158 Third 100 Words 6 152 After plotting these numbers on the Fry graph I came up with an average age of 14 and a grade level of 9th grade. For the first passage the age was 14 and the grade level 9th grade. For the second passage the age was 17 and the grade level 12th. For the last passage the age was 14 and the grade level 9th. Factors Affecting Text Difficulty Ryder and Graves say that the eight factors that effect text difficulty are content, genre, organization, sentences, vocabulary, support, visuals, and design. After calculating the readability of the book I chose for this class I was happy to learn that it falls right into my targeted grade and age level. Even thought the Fry’s method confirmed what I thought I already knew it is nice to have my feeling validated by sound data. Without a method like Fry’s we as educators have to use eight factors listed in Ryder and Graves to determine readability. At first glance I didn’t think the content of the book would appeal too many of my students. It is about a boy in pre-modern times in search of his treasure, he is following his dream and won’t let obstacles stop

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