are the factors from the text such as, design, style, structure, length of passage, etc.
C. Approaches of Measuring Readability
There are several approaches that can be used in measuring the readability of the text. Teachers as well as text writers have used different methods in
determining the level of difficulty of written texts which are suitable to the student’s educational background level. Basically, the readability of a text can be
measured in three ways: 1 instructor’s judgment; 2 comprehension testing by cloze procedure; and 3 statistical readability formulas based on some type of
tally of linguistic elements.
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The same approaches with different terms in measuring of the readability are stated by Beard. He distinguished three broad approaches to the assessment of the
text suitability. These can be grouped as teacher-based, text based and pupil- based.
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Among the three approaches, the writer will use the two approaches in measuring the readability of the texts. The two methods are the statistical
readability formula by using Flesch Reading Ease formula and the Cloze Procedure Test.
1. Instructor’s Judgment
Many people tend to use their feelings in judging difficulty level of a written text instead of applying a readability formula as a tool. Teachers or
text writers with longer experience have developed a feeling for knowing which materials will be suitable for their particular students. They assess their
drafts intuitively; they sense that a piece needs work, or that a text is too difficult, or do not flow well.
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16
Renate A. Schulz, “Literature and readability: bridging the gap in foreign language reading”, in FORUM, vol. XX number 4, October 1982, p.10
17
Roger Beard, Developing Reading 3-1, London: Hodder Stoughton, 1990, Second Edition, p. 119
18
Maria H. Soelistio, The use of readability formula…, p. 53
Langer and others have attempted to “objectivity” evaluator judgment through a system which requires an impressionistic assessment of specific text
qualities, using a five-point semantic differential scale. Four main textual “dimensions” are presented for evaluation, with each containing several sub-
categories. The principal text qualities to be judged are text simplicity in terms of short, simple sentences, and use of common words; visible external
organizational structure and logical internal sequence of text; length of text and concentration, and conciseness of essential information; presence of
special “interest simulators” within the text such as exclamations, direct speech, rhetorical questions, direct address of reader, etc.
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2. Cloze Procedure
a. Concept of Cloze Procedure
The “cloze” procedures for testing written text is often treated as a readability test because a formula exists for translating data from “cloze
tests” into numerical results. “Cloze” is derived from “closure”, a term used is Gestalt psychology and referring to the human tendency to
complete mentally familiar yet incomplete patterns e.g., seeing a broken circle as a whole one.
Cloze procedure is a technique in which words are deleted from a passage according to a word-count formula or various other criteria. The
passage is presented to students, who insert words as they read to complete and construct meaning from the text. In the same manner as stated by
Anderson that cloze tests are typically constructed by deleting from selected texts every n-th word n usually being a number somewhere
between 5 and 12 and simply requiring the test taker to restore the word that has been deleted.
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19
Renate A. Schulz, “Literature and readability: bridging the gap in foreign language reading”…, p. 10
20
J.C. Anderson, Assessing Reading, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 207
Cloze test became a popular method for measuring the suitability of the text for a particular audience. It was popular because its scoring was
objective; it was easy to use and analyze; it used the text itself for analysis; and it yields high correlations to other formulas.
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b. Types of Cloze Test
1. Fill in the Blank
This form of the cloze test is adapted from the traditional fill-in-the blank type activities. The difference is that traditional type activities
were often sentence based, whereas a cloze activity involves a passage with every nth word deleted. The deleted words are listed and the
students are required to fill in the blanks with appropriate word from the list.
2. Deleting a Particular Class of Words
Sometimes the testers, especially the teachers, are interested in deleting a particular set of words to check the students’ ability in using
these words. In some cases the value of n cannot be fixed because the blank may correspond to a word that should not be deleted. Therefore,
the teachers use random ratio deletion procedure. That is, n is not fixed and it is determined by the test developer prefers to delete a
particular word. In this version, which is most useful for instructional purposes, a particular group of word is deleted. For instance, the
teacher might be interested to see the extent to which students have command over the use of prepositions, articles, verb forms, adverbs,
adjectives, etc.
3. Catered Technique
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