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THE MEASUREMENT OF TEXT’S READABILITY

Muhammad Farkhan
(muhammadfarkhan@gmail.com)

Abstract

The selection of authentic and non-authentic reading texts used as learning


materials becomes the paramount importance to develop the students’ language
proficiency. This selection relies on a quantitative analysis of texts’ readability using
certain formulas designed to know whether the text is really relevant and appropriate
to the learners’ ability. This analysis makes use of cloze-test to get the data needed.
In addition, it is also necessary to analysis the text qualitatively to see some cultural
aspects that underlie the text’s content, so that the teachers will be able to decide to
use the texts as learning materials or not.

Key words: readability cloze-test measurement

A. Introduction
English as an international language plays important role in many fields of
human lives. It is used to express ideas, feeling, business transaction, and negotiation;
to build relationship among nations bilaterally or multilaterally; and to develop or
transfer science and technology. Without English mastery, especially in this era of
globalization, the people or nation will be left behind. If they want to be involved in
those fields, they have to master English well.
Realizing the importance of English, the government has determined that English
is the first foreign language taught at schools and university as a compulsory subject
or as a major. Its main objective is to develop the students’ ability to use English in
oral and written communication. It can be said the students are required to acquire
communicative competence. Of course, the teaching of this language covers its four
aspects: language skills, language components, culture, and literary works, which are
presented in an integrated classroom activity (Pusat Kurikulum, 2002: 6). The activity
can be conducted well if learning materials, either authentic or non-authentic ones,
facilitate it.
The choice of authentic and non-authentic materials, especially reading texts that
will be used in the classroom is sometimes a matter for some teachers. They have to
choose reading texts appropriate to the students’ level. The texts that are too far
beyond their level will make them frustrated to understand because of the difficult
vocabularies and sentence patterns they contain; so they become unmotivated to learn

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English. Meanwhile, if the texts are under their level they will make them
overconfident to comprehend; so they lead them to underestimate what is going to be
given. Therefore, the texts used by the teachers should conform to their level or
should be slightly beyond their level. In other words, the texts should contain the
appropriate vocabularies and grammatical rules suitable for the themes and topics to
be determined on the basis of students’ interest and stages of development (Huda,
1999: 119).
The suitability of the texts with the level of the students is commonly known
as readability. It is one of the important factors that influence the students to
comprehend the texts used to develop their English proficiency. It is a hard duty for
the teachers to provide the appropriate texts, as they have to measure and analyze the
texts that will be used. Mostly the analysis is focused only on their linguistic aspects,
like lexical and grammatical contents. The analysis will yield a clear description of
their readability if they are supplemented by a cultural content.

B. The Definition of Reading


In everyday lives, reading plays important role for human being from the ancient
era to this era of globalization. Through reading and writing human beings are able to
transfer what they know to the others, so that they become well informed with various
information related not only to their lives but also to other creatures’ lives.
Reading is one of the four language skills that should be developed by the teachers in
teaching English as a foreign language. Reading has an important priority if
compared with the other skills, not only because it helps the people get information
and new technology, it is also a complex process. It is influenced by a variety of
factors, such as experiential and conceptual backgrounds; word recognition strategies;
reasoning abilities; purposes of reading; situation in which reading takes place;
motivation; and the complexity of the text.
To understand what reading means, it’s would be better if we know and study
various definitions given by the experts. According to Nuttal, reading is the process
of decoding the written text encoded by the writer (1987:4). It informs us that in
reading, someone has to try to understand the idea or thought of the writer through
the written text. Of course he has to be familiar with the words and grammars used in
the text, which govern to be sentences and paragraphs. Supporting this idea, Harmer
defines reading as an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain. The eyes receive
messages and the brain then has to work out the significance of these messages
(1991: 190). It denotes that reading is a complex skill involving identifying graphic
symbols and translating into meaningful messages or thoughts done in the mind of the
readers. It can be said that if the eyes fail to identify the symbols, the brain will get
difficulties in transferring the messages. To help the brain do its tasks in reading,
someone has to use his previous knowledge. Concerning with this, Grellet says that
reading is a constant process of guessing, and what one brings to the text is often
more important than what one finds in it (1981: 7). It is obviously clear that the
previous knowledge of the readers plays important role in comprehending the text.

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Reading is not a passive activity but it also involves a complex process that
must always be actively initiated and directed by the reader. He is not passive
recipient of massage from the printed materials, but he must predict if that is to
comprehend all about reading text. The processes that usually take place when
someone reads a text, according to Heaton (1995: 106), are the specific skills
involved in comprehending the text. There are too many specific skills of reading,
among of them are:
1. recognizing words and word groups associating sounds with
their corresponding graphic symbols;
2. deducing meaning of words by understanding word formation
or contextual clues;
3. understanding explicitly stated information;
4. understanding relations within the sentences;
5. skimming and scanning; and
6. understanding information not explicitly stated.
Harris classifies the processes, which he called the abilities in reading, into
three main aspects: language and graphic symbols; ideas; and tone and style. The first
Involves comprehending a large percentage of lexical items; understanding the
syntactical patterns and morphological forms; and responding to graphic symbols of
writing. The second includes identifying the central idea and its subordinate ideas;
and drawing correct conclusion. The third covers recognizing author’s attitude toward
the subject and identifying methods and stylistic devices (1969:59).
All of the processes or the skills should be well mastered by senior high school and
university students. In order to help students comprehend the written material in the
texts being used, the teachers should give them such knowledge and ability to be able
to reading material with ease and enjoyment. With their guidance, the students should
be able to turn to books freely with a feeling of pleasure. However, there should be a
priority to be achieved by the students according to the level where they are in.
Referring to the explanation above, the writer defines reading skill as the
active processes of comprehending the written materials involving not only the
graphic symbols but also the massages conveyed by those symbols.

C. Readability
As a good teacher of English, someone has to try to run the teaching and
learning activities in the classroom effectively and efficiently. Therefore, he/she has
to provide the students with materials in order to help them meet the objectives of
learning determined before. According to Tomlinson (1998: 4), materials refer to
anything, which is used by teachers or students to facilitate learning of a language.
They could be cassettes, videos, CD room, readers, textbooks, workbooks, or
photocopied exercises. Concerning with the development of reading skills, of course
the teacher is required to provide the students with learning materials, a textbook or
literary works. Actually, preparing such learning materials by the teachers themselves
is a hard work for them, because they need not only special capability but also plenty

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of time to prepare their own materials. So, they can select the textbooks or literary
works available in the market as long as they fulfil the following characteristics:
1. They emphasize the communicative functions of language;
2. They try to reflect the students’ needs and interests;
3. They emphasize skills in using the language;
4. They usually have a good balance among the four language
skills;
5. They tend to be very specific in their definition of aims;
6. Both content and methods reflect the authentic language of
everyday life (Grant, 1987: 14).
Besides those characteristics, in preparing the textbook or reading texts the
teacher has to pay attention to three other characteristics as suggested by Nuttall.
They are readability, suitability of content, and exploitability (1987: 25).
Related to the topic being discussed, the writer tends to discuss more about
the readability of the texts. This term is closely related to the reading activity,
especially to the text or the passages used as the materials of teaching and learning
process both inside and outside the classroom. Lexically, the word “readability is
derived from the root word “read” and two suffixes “able” and “ty”, which mean
being able to be read. .It can be said if the text is readable or if someone can read the
text and comprehend the message conveyed, it means it can be read and so that it has
readability. Terminologically, the definitions of readability given by the experts are
various because of the different points of view. To understand comprehensively, the
writer presents some of them having the same idea as in the following discussion.
Smith and King define readability as the difficulty level of reading materials
(1988: 3). It implies that readability is dealt with the degree or level of the difficulty
of the reading materials being used in the classroom. While according to Karlin
(1984: 99), readability refers to the suitability between the reading ability and
difficulty of materials. Both definitions still point out the general aspect of difficulty.
They do not specify the difficulty, whether it is about the vocabularies used by the
writers, whether it is about the structures or sentence patterns, which govern the
vocabularies to sentences and paragraphs, or about the conceptual contents of the
materials. Still discussing about the readability, Nuttall says that it is about the
linguistic difficulty, especially with the lexical and structural elements of the reading
text. Further, she says:
Obviously a text should be at the right level of difficulty for the students, but
assessing the right level is not straightforward. Our concern here is with
linguistic difficulty only, ignoring for the moment the questions of conceptual
difficulty and interest. The combination of structural and lexical difficulty is
readability (1987: 25).
Based on the explanation above, it can be said that readability is the degree or
level of difficulty of the lexical and structural components of the reading materials or
texts. Actually the difficulty of the text is very relative to the students reading ability.
Their skills in analyzing the structural elements, predicting the meaning of the

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difficult vocabularies based on their context; in scanning or skimming the
information; and looking for the detailed information; influence the students ability in
comprehending the text.
The students’ ability to understand the content of the reading depends also on
their ability to see the relation of one part to the other in a sentence or paragraph. It
denotes that the readability of the reading materials can not be separated from the
students’ ability to understand it, and their ability to understand the text depends on
the reading material itself. Therefore; it is possible to say that the reading materials
will have the appropriate level of difficulty or readability if the readers can
understand most of the message being conveyed by the vocabularies and the
structural elements of the text. They will have less readability if the students fail to
catch most of the massage intended by the writer of the texts. Such readability makes
uses of the linguistic aspects of the text as their criteria. They may lead to a bias
difficulty level if its nonlinguistic aspect, such as their cultural background is left
unanalyzed. Knowing most vocabularies and grammatical contents does not
guarantee someone to understand most of the messages intended by the author. He
needs to understand the cultural background where the linguistic aspects appear.
Therefore, readability is dependent on both linguistic and nonlinguistic factors.

D. The Measurement of Readability


As discussed before, there are only two components of the reading materials
that affect its readability: its vocabularies and structural difficulty. Both linguistic
elements are basis to design the measurement of readability. Moreover, there are also
other components of the text that influence its readability such as cultural background
and ideational complexity, which are more difficult to measure as they need to be
qualitatively analyzed.
Related to this readability measurement, there are some well-known
applicable methods that can be used. They are grouped into two. The first methods,
which are illustrated by numerous readability formulas, are based on length of words
or vocabularies and length of sentences; the second is based upon the predictability of
words in a passage, which usually make use of a simple word deletion procedure
(Smith and King, 1988: 3). Here are the formulas compiled from various resources;
the first seven formulas are based on the length of words and sentences, while the last
one is based on the predictability of words in a passage (Karlin, 1984: 96-99).
1. Index Number (Wheeler and Smith)
2. Grade Level Score (Spache)
3. Reading Ease Score (Flesch)
4. Fog Formula (Gunning)
5. The Readability Nomograph (Fry)
6. Grade Placement Score (Lorge)
7. SMOG Index (McLaughlin)
8. Cloze Technique (Taylor).

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Of eight techniques above cloze technique formula is easier and more simpler
than the others. The determination of difficult words and sentences in the previous
formulas are dependent on the tester’s knowledge and assumption; while in Cloze
technique such determination is not found, because difficult words and sentences of
the text are judged by the students themselves. So it seems fairer and more objective.
This test may employ fill-in the blank type, multiple choice type, or matching test
type. In this research the writer adopts fill-in the blank type test.
The cloze technique has emerged recently as an alternative measurement for testing
comprehension of the more specifically linguistic elements in a text. The test usually
takes the form of Fill in the blank type, with the different underlining principles. The
first principle is that the test is based upon the Gestalt theory of closure which refers
to the tendency that people have in viewing structure as wholes (Heaton, 1988: 16).
The second principle is that the deletion of words should be done
systematically or mechanically (Weir,1993: 81). This suggests that the deletion of
words is not conducted randomly or arbitrarily, but it should be done according to a
certain rule. Usually, the rule that is employed is that every n-th word (for example
every fifth, sixth, or seventh word) should be deleted. The interval at which words are
deleted should not be too short: e.g. every third or forth words; or too long; e. g.
every eighth or even tenth words. Too short interval causes the students difficult to
comprehend the passage because the context is not so clear enough; while too long
interval not only requires the teacher to look for long passage but also makes the
students easy to understand because the context become clearer. By applying this
rule, the tester has no chance to concentrate only on deleting nouns, or verbs, or any
other word classes. In this aspect, lies the difference between the cloze test and the
other Fill in the blank types which are extremely subjective. The following is an
extract from an advanced level cloze passage in which every seventh word has been
deleted (adopted from Heaton).
The mark assigned to a student _____ surrounded by an area of uncertainty
_____ is the cumulative effect of a _____ of sampling errors. One sample of
_____ students’ behaviors is exhibited on one _____ one occasion in response
to one sample _____set by one sample of examiners _____ possibly marked
by one other. Each _____ the sampling errors is almost insignificant _____
itself. However, when each sampling error _____ added to others, the total
_____ of possible sampling errors becomes significant.
The third principle is redundancy, that is the extent to which words are predictable.
(Smith and King, 1988: 14). It is dealt with the provision of information by more
than one source. The redundancy may be realized through various types of elements,
such as repetition, synonyms, antonyms, metaphors, examples, definition, details,
comparison, etc. The readers can take some advantages of those elements when they
reconstruct the writers’ idea or try to understand the missing words. They may catch
the meaning of the missing words when they find the examples given, repetitions and
so on.

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In addition to the previous principles, the teachers have to take into account
which parts of the books or works are taken as samples of the test. Usually the initial,
middle, and final part of the book are used as sample of the test. This coverage of the
texts is assumed to reflect the real index of difficulty. It the test contains only certain
parts of the book, for example from the initial part, the readability of the book is still
questionable, for some parts of the book are not represented adequately. The test may
be too easy or difficult for the testees.
Readability of the texts is not only a matter of comparing the readers’
responses with the original form of the text, but it also concerns with comparing the
average score with certain criteria to judge the level of difficulty of the text. In
scoring the students’ responses, Heaton (1988: 16) suggests that there are two
methods of scoring a cloze test: one mark may be awarded for each acceptable
answer or else one mark may be awarded for each exact answer. Both methods have
been found reliable. Therefore, it is reliable means of determining whether or not
certain texts are at an appropriate level for particular group of students.
In judging the level of readability, the teacher may adopt the criteria
introduced by Heaton: 1) independent level; 2) instructional level; and 3) frustrational
level. The independent level indicates that the students will not get problems in
reading, they can read the passage easily. The instructional level shows that the
material of reading can be used as source of developing reading comprehension;
while the frustrational level shows that the text is very difficult and not appropriate to
be used as source for developing reading comprehension. Further he says If the mean
score of the group is over 53%, the materials can be used by the students for reading
at the independent level, the text being considered easy enough for students to read on
their own without any help. If the mean score obtained is between 44% and 53%, the
material is suitable for use at the instructional level, with the help of teacher. If the
mean score is below 44%, the text is described as being at the frustrational level and
should not be used even with the help of the teacher (1988: 131-2). Before using the
criteria, the teachers have to count first the number of deleted words and use them to
get the percentage of individual right responses, and the average percentage of the
group. If the test contains three passages with 200 deleted words, the student who
answers 100 items rightly will get 50%. Then, this whole individuals’ percentage are
calculated to get the average percentage of the group. If the group obtains 20% and is
compared to the criteria above, it will fall below 44%. It means the text in at
frustrational level or it needs more teachers’ guidance.
To simplify the explanation of the readability level as given by Heaton, and to
make it easier to judge the readability level of the reading materials of the textbook,
the criteria of it is presented in Table 1. If the score has already obtained, the text
should be qualitatively analyzed in term of it cultural background. This analysis
makes it more reliable to judge whether the text has the appropriate level of difficulty
or not.
Table 1
Criteria of readability Level

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Mean Score (%) Remark

Over 53% Independent Level


Between 44% - 53% Instructional Level
Below 44% Frustrational Level

Referring to the discussion above, the writer can formulate the procedures of
using cloze technique to measure the readability of reading materials as follows:
1. Select one passage from the initial, middle, and final parts of
the textbook;
2. Determine the n-th words being deleted, the fifth, sixth, or
seventh;
3. Rewrite the text containing some missing words;
4. Ask the students to fill in the blank;
5. Count up the correct insertions and compare the passage; and
6. Determine the criteria reached by the average score.
7. Determine the level of readability;
8. Analyzing the text seen from its the cultural aspect.

E. Conclusion
Referring to the previous discussion, the writer is able to conclude the
textbooks or other literary works used as learning materials should be quantitatively
and qualitatively analyzed to obtain the real level of their difficulty. Too difficult
texts tend to discourage the students to learn; and too easy texts tend to make them
bored and uninterested.

References

Huda, Nuril. 1999. Language Learning and Teaching, Malang: IKIP Malang
Publisher
Nuttal, Christine. 1987. Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language. London:
Heinemann Educational Books.
Harmer, Jeremy. 1991. The Practice of English Language Teaching. London:
Longman.
Grallet, Francoise. 1981. Developing Reading Skills. Cambridge: CPU.
Heaton, J. B. 1995. Writing English Language Tests. London: Longman,
Harris, David P. 1969. Testing English as a second language. New York: McGraw
Hill Book Company..

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Pusat kurikulum, Diknas 2002. Kurikulum Berbasis Kompetensi. Jakarta: Pusat
Kurikulum
Tomlinson, Brain. 1998. Materials Development in a Language Teaching.
(Cambridge: CPU, 1998), p.4
Grant, Nevile. 1987. Making The Most of Your Textbooks. London: Longman,
M Judith. Smith and Wayne A. King. 1988. Readability Michigan: Ulrih’s Books,
Karlin, Robert. 1984. Teaching Reading in High School. New York: Harper & Row
Publisher,
Weir, Cyril. 1993. Understanding and Developing Language Tests. New York:
Prentice Hall.

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