They are designed to indicate how difficult a reading passage in English is to understand. There are two tests, the Flesch reading ease, and the Flesch–Kincaid grade level. Although they use the same core measures (word length and sentence length), they have.
How to Write Easy- to- Read Health Materials: Medline. Plus. Medical concepts and language can be complex. People need easily understandable health information regardless of age, background or reading level. Medline. Plus offers guidelines and resources to help you create easy- to- read health materials. ETR materials are written for audiences who have difficulty reading or understanding information. These materials can also benefit people who prefer reading easy- to- read information. Writing ETR materials involves several important steps: Know your target audience.
Consider reading level, cultural background, age group and English Language Proficiency (ELP). Determine the target audience. Who do you expect to read your health materials? Research your target audience. Use tools such as databases, demographic information, surveys and interviews to learn about the needs of the target group.
If extensive research is not possible due to time or budget constraints, try contacting other organizations that have similar target audiences. Include your target audience.
Users can provide valuable feedback. Determine objectives and outcomes. What do you want your target audience to do as a result of reading your materials? For example, if your objective is to show the proper use of asthma inhalers, emphasize the outcome of their proper use. A sample sentence might be: .
To write easy- to- read health materials, it's important to learn about cognitive and reading challenges that some users may have. For example, the writing style and graphics may be different for an HIV/AIDS brochure for teens than for adults over age 5. Keep within a range of about a 7th or 8th grade reading level. Grab your readers' attention from the very beginning. Make the first few sentences stand out by using compelling, clear language. Structure the material logically.
Start by stating the topic. Include the most important points about what you want people to learn. Then write the body of the material. Finish with a summary of the material and restate the key concepts. Include specific actions users can take. Emphasize the benefits of taking action. Don't talk down to the reader.
Maintain an adult perspective while using easy- to- read language. Write your draft, then review and edit several times. Remove words, sentences or paragraphs that do not help the reader understand the concepts. Materials that are too wordy will make them more difficult to understand.
Consider incorporating Web accessibility best practices. An accessible Web site helps people with reading and learning disabilities.
- Harry McLaughlin My readability formula SMOG estimates the years of education needed to understand a piece of writing. SMOG is widely used, particularly for checking health messages. Because I dropped reading research to become a clinical.
- Reading level can be measured using the Flesh-Kincaid Index, the Fog Index, SMOG-testing, and the Fry Formula Measuring Readability / Reading Level Are MedicalBrochures Worthwhile? What Makes an Effective Handout? Purchase or Make Your Own?
- For a quick conversion table for SMOG Readability Formula, and additional rules for calculating the SMOG for shorter texts, including pamphlets, visit Assessing Reading Level. To further confuse the issue of reading levels, when my child was professionally tested her.
- The readability analyzer estimates the readability of a passage of text using the Flesch Reading Ease, Fog Scale Level, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, SMOG Level and Dale-Chall metrics.
- Consider reading level, cultural background, age group and English Language Proficiency (ELP). Determine the target audience. Who do you expect to read your health materials?
Clean Up Cluttered Pages With the free Readability browser add-on, you're one click away from a better web experience. Save for Reading Later Readability stores articles you find on the web for reading at your convenience—any. Use our free readability checker and find out. Just copy and paste your writing into the box below and we’ll check it against the Flesch-Kincaid reading ease score, the Gunning Fog score and the SMOG index (
For more information on Web accessibility, see the Web. AIM (Web Accessibility in Mind) site from the Center for Persons with Disabilities at Utah State University. Language and writing style.
Find alternatives for complex words, medical jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms. At times there may not be an alternative or you may want to teach patients the terms because their healthcare providers will be using them. In those cases, teach the terms by explaining the concept first in plain language. Then introduce the new word(s). It is also helpful to provide a simple pronunciation guide.
For example, instead of . A general guideline is to limit most sentences to 1. Use words like . A personal voice can help engage readers. Where appropriate, use bulleted lists instead of blocks of text to make information more readable. Dense blocks of text can be difficult to read. Use the active voice. Direct language helps people associate concepts with actions.
Example: Active: Amanda used her inhaler today. Passive: The inhaler was used by Amanda today. Be consistent with terms. Be aware, however, that some people may have vision disabilities. For example, some people with color blindness cannot distinguish red from green.
Use illustrations and photos with concise captions. Keep captions close to images. Avoid graphs and charts unless they are essential to convey the concepts. If you do use them, make sure they are simple and clear.
Balance the use of text, graphics, and clear or . Try for about 4. 0- 5. Avoid italics of more than a few words at a time. Use sans serif fonts such as Arial, Verdana, Frutiger, Tahoma, or Helvetica.
San serif fonts are considered easy to read even at smaller sizes. Also see the font accessibility page from Web. AIM. Use bolded headings and subheadings to separate and highlight document sections. Justify the left margin only. This means the left margin should be straight and the right margin should be . Testing during the writing process can help ensure your audience understands your materials.
Evaluate the feedback and revise your materials if necessary. For more information, see the Pretest and Revise Draft Materials section from the National Institute of Health's . These are some examples: Readability- Score. An online tool from the open source Text Statistics project. Tests for 5 different reading assessment formulas.
New Dale- Chall Readability formula - Designed for evaluating health education materials. Dale- Chall evaluates readability by assessing sentence structure and vocabulary. Fry Readability Graph - A commonly used readability assessment tool. See the Iowa Department of Public Health's Fry Readability Graph page (PDF). SMOG - Less frequently used than the Fry Graph, but still widely used. An online testing tool is available at the Readability- Score.
See the Iowa Department of Public Health's Gunning- FOG Readability page (PDF). An online testing tool is available at the Readability- Score. Flesch- Kincaid Grade Level - Used in the Microsoft Word grammar checker. An online testing tool is available at the Readability- Score. Readability software programs.
Below are examples of software programs. Readability software may not be suitable for every ETR project but can be helpful for some.
If you use a website or software program to test readability, you'll need to prepare your text. You may have problems with reliability and accuracy if you don't . This will artificially lower the readability score. After you create ETR materials, we suggest you label them.