Selamat Datang欢迎Vaazhga

Welcome

Professor David WrayUniversity of Warwick,

United Kingdom

Dr Dahlia JananUniversiti Pendidikan Sultan

Idris, Malaysia

Many thanks for coming to today’s meeting

Funded by the British Academy and Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris

A project to establish a research network to explore the concept and operation of

readability in a range of languages and scripts

What we would like from the day

• To share some ideas and to make you as enthusiastic as we are about this topic• To develop some plans for building a

research network• To develop a clearer view about

what next

The Contested Concept of

Exploring the nature of readability

• The science (or is it art) of matching texts to readers

• A taken-for-granted concept – even Word does it for you!

• Easily measured, easily understood http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp

• It’s just about how difficult texts are to read

• Isn’t it …..?

How difficult is this text?

Is this text easier or harder?

Word says:

Reading Ease = 65.9

Reading Grade level = 6.8

Word says:

Reading Ease = 65.4

Reading Grade level = 6.9

Word’s readability scores for these two texts are almost identical. Yet they are clearly different in nature and effect on the reader.

Exploring the nature of readability• In research into readability, measuring it has

tended to get more attention than actually analysing what it is.

• Measurement has usually been approached through the use of formulae.

• For example, Flesch Reading Ease score = 206.835 − (1.015 × ASL) − (84.6 × ASW) Where: ASL = average sentence length (number of words divided by number of sentences); ASW = average word length in syllables (number of syllables divided by number of words)

Exploring readability formulae

• We applied 6 commonly used readability formulae to 64 texts chosen by primary school children.

• The first table shows correlations between the rank ordering of the texts by the six formulae.

• The second table shows the mean grade levels assigned to the texts by the six formulae.

Exploring readability formulae

Formula FOG Flesch-Kincaid Spache Dale-Chall ATOS

SMOG .98 .93 .83 -.41 .70

FOG .95 .84 -.47 .74

Flesch-Kincaid .88 -.32 .68

Spache -.14 .68

Dale-Chall -.49

Table 1: Spearman's rank order correlation coefficients (rho) between the SMOG, FOG, Flesch-Kincaid, Spache, Dale-Chall and ATOS formulae

Exploring readability formulae

Formulae Mean text grade level predicted

SMOG 6.64FOG 5.80Flesch-Kincaid 3.96Spache 4.05Dale-Chall 9.88ATOS 3.13

Table 2: The mean text grade levels predicted by the six readability formulae

Exploring readability formulae

• These results suggest that the readability formulae (with the exception of the Dale-Chall) generally agree about which texts are harder and which are easier.

• But they do not agree about the levels of difficulty of the texts.

• Therefore a teacher cannot rely on them to match texts to readers.

Why such variability?• Various formulae measure different things– Word length

– Sentence length

– Unfamiliar / Difficult words

– Polysyllabic words

• Each of these is problematic

Why such variability?• Various formulae measure different things– Word length• adze • gneiss • velociraptor

Why such variability?• Various formulae measure different things– Sentence length• The princess kissed the frog and he turned into a

handsome prince so, of course, they married and lived happily ever after.• One is and then one is not. That is the problem of

man.

Why such variability?• Various formulae measure different things– Unfamiliar / Difficult words• rug• neighborhood

Why such variability?• Various formulae measure different things– Polysyllabic words• footballer• reported• strengths

• Which of these is more readable?• Which of these is more readable?• Which of these is more readable?• Which of these is more readable?

• Which of these is more readable?• Which of these is more readable?

•Which of these is more readable?

Which of these is more readable?

Readability or legibility?

Legibility can be

quite hard to deal

with

Readability has faded from view – or has it?

1920-1935 1935-1950 1950-1965 1965-1980 1980-1995 1995-20100

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

Figure 1: Readability studies in academic publications

JSTORScienceDirect

Years

Num

ber o

f pub

licati

ons

Readability has faded from view – or has it?

• Research into readability has seriously declined in educational fields.

• But the concept is still heavily used in Health and Medical fields.

Readability has also become theoretically problematic

The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then one can never tell. After the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated. However, that is a part of life.

Most 9 year olds could ‘read’ this aloud, but not understand it.

Readability has also become theoretically problematic

The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then one can never tell. After the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated. However, that is a part of life.

When you are told this is about washing clothes, everything becomes clear

Changing paradigms• Theories of readability have changed because theories

of reading have changed. Think how much information the reader supplies in the following short texts.

• Mary heard the ice-cream van coming down the street. She remembered her birthday money and rushed into the house.

• Mary heard the bus coming down the street. She remembered her birthday money and rushed into the house.

Changing paradigms• Mary heard the ice-cream van coming down

the street. She remembered her gun and rushed into the house.

• Mary heard the ice-cream van coming down the street. She remembered her stomach and rushed into the house.

Non più andrai, farfallone amorosoA new model of readability