Flesch Reading Ease Calculator

How to use

1. Paste English text of at least a few sentences.
2. Read the Flesch Reading Ease score, the band it falls in and the grade level.
3. Check the counts of words, sentences and syllables behind the score.
4. Shorten long sentences and long words, then paste the text again to compare.

What it checks and how it works

The score is 206.835 minus 1.015 times the average words per sentence, minus 84.6 times the average syllables per word. A higher score means easier text. The bands, for example 60 to 70 for standard plain English at about 8th and 9th grade, are Flesch's table as reproduced by DuBay (2004), The Principles of Readability. The Flesch-Kincaid grade level is 0.39 times words per sentence plus 11.8 times syllables per word, minus 15.59, from the 1975 study for the US Navy by Kincaid and others.

Limits: the formula was calibrated on English, so a score for Arabic or any other language means nothing and the tool does not give one. Only English words are counted. Syllables come from the syllable package, an English heuristic that is wrong for some names and loanwords, and sentence endings are approximate. The score reads sentence and word length only: it cannot tell whether a text is clear, accurate or well organised, and a short sample moves a lot with one long sentence.