Significance of Research INTRODUCTION

10 understanding of concept. The Lorge Readability Index was used to predicting readability of passages. 7 The Dale Chall Readability Formula is created by Edgar Dale and Jeanne Chall. The Dale Chall formula uses a list of 3000 easy words. The way using the formula is by counting the hard words outside the list. It spends much time, since it should be done manually; however, it is easier in practice. As overviewed by Dubay, the formula is based on two counts; average sentence length and percentage of unfamiliar words outside the Dale list of 3000 words. This formula is used for predicting readability. 8 The result of both counting are used to estimate corrected of grade level as shown in the table 2.1 below. Table 2.1 Corrected Grade Level Estimation of Dale Chall Formula Formula Scores Corrected Grade Level 4.9 and below 5.0 to 5.9 6.0 to 6.9 7.0 to 7.9 8.0 to 8.9 9.0 to 9.9 10 and above Grade 4 and below Grades 5 – 6 Grades 7 – 8 Grades 9 – 10 Grades 11 – 12 Grades 13 – 15 college Grades 16 and above college graduate Source: The Classic Readability Studies 9 The Flesch formulas are published by Rudolf Flesch. As elaborated by Dubay he published two formulas, the first is readability formula for measuring adults reading materials. The second formula consists of two parts, the first is Reading Ease formula which reduced the use of affixes and used two variables they are the number of syllables and the number of sentences per 100 words sample. The second part of this formula is predicting human interest by counting the number of personal words like pronouns and names, and personal sentences like quotes, exclamations, and incomplete sentences. 10 The following is reading ease formula: Score = 206.835 – 1.015 x ASL – 84.6 x ASW Where: Score = position on a scale of 0 difficult to 100 easy ASL = average sentence length the number of words divided by the number of sentences. 7 Ibid., pp. 44 —57. 8 Dubay. Op. Cit., pp. 61 —95. 9 Ibid. p. 71 10 Ibid. pp. 96 —97. 11 ASW = average number of syllables per word the number of syllables divided by the number of words. To estimate reading grade and its description can be seen from reading ease score, it is shown in table 2.2 below. Table 2.2 Reading Ease Scale Reading Ease Score Style Description Estimated Reading Grade 0 to 30 30 to 40 50 to 60 60 to 70 70 to 80 80 to 90 90 to 100 Very Difficult Difficult Fairly Difficult Standard Fairly Easy Easy Very Easy College graduate 13 th to 16 th grade 10 th to 12 th grade 8 th to 9 th grade 7 th grade 6 th grade 5 th grade Source: The Classic Readability Studies 11 From the explanation above known that measuring readability of texts and books have been done since the earliest of 1930s. It indicates that comprehending the content of a text or book is very important to make sense the author’s ideas. The classic readability formulas as overviewed by Dubay with their limitations might be able to stimulate many researchers who are interested in investigating whether readability books, passages, newsletters, magazines and textbooks. It is proved by appearing many researchers with their new ideas to improve the classics readability formulas.

2. New Readability Formulas

The new readability formulas are as the development and improvement of classics readability formulas. Since there are many questions regarding the criterion passages, criterion scores and the reading tests in which the formulas developed and validated. Emerging of new readability formulas indicate that this field get much attention from researchers in determining the readability of books or passages. The following are the explanation of new readability formulas among others Coleman Formulas, Flesch Kincaid Grade Level, Automated Readability Index ARI, and SMOG. 11 Dubay. Op. Cit., p. 97.