What Grade Level Am I Writing?

Have you ever asked, “What grade level am I writing?” Knowing the grade level can help make your content more accessible to your audience. Whether it’s an essay, blog post, or business material, assessing readability allows you to adjust complexity and improve engagement. This article will cover how to determine your writing’s grade level, its importance, and resources for reliable assessment.

What is Readability? Why Is Readability Important?

What is readability? Readability relates to how easily the target audience can read and comprehend your content. It considers characteristics such as word choice, sentence structure, layout, font size, and design elements that affect how easily and fast readers can comprehend written information.

Why is readability important? 

• Improves comprehension: Easy-to-read text makes it simple for readers to grasp the main concepts. This is especially useful for communicating complex information to a large audience.
• Increases engagement: When readers find your content friendly, they are likelier to remain interested, read thoroughly, and assimilate the information. Clear readability also minimizes the possibility that readers will skim or skip sections.
• Improves accessibility: Simple language and clear structure make it easier for a larger range of readers to interact with the content.
• Promotes SEO and digital success: Readability is important for SEO online because search engines give preference to user-friendly content. Readable content increases search engine rankings by encouraging longer visits to a page.
• Enhances credibility and trust: A writer or brand can establish trust by demonstrating that they respect the time and needs of their audience through well-organized, easily digestible content.

What Grade Level Am I Writing?

You can determine what grade level your writing is by using several formulas: 

1. Determine Your Own Readability Scores

First of all, you can choose for yourself formulas to help you determine your score. There are several readability formulas you can refer to, like the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease, Gunning Fog Index, SMOG Index, Powers Sumner-Kearl, FORCAST Grade Level, etc. These tools look at factors such as:

• Sentence length: Shorter sentences generally lower the grade level.
• Word choice: Simpler words are more understandable and frequently given to lower school levels.
• Syllable count: Words with fewer syllables tend to lower the reading score, whereas more complex, multisyllabic words raise it.

Here is one of the most popular formulas: the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. 

0.39 * (total words/total sentences) + 11.8 * (total syllables/total words) – 15.59

The results score corresponds to a US grade level of education. For example, if you obtain a score of 9, it signifies that your content is appropriate for readers in the ninth grade.

Let’s check the table of the results here:

Flesch Reading Ease Score table. Cre: ResearchGate

Note: The higher the reading score, the easier a piece of text is to read.

For example, we use a random paragraph from ChatGPT-4 as below:

A random paragraph from ChatGPT-4

We start scoring this paragraph by using the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level formulas and determining what grade level this writing is. 

The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level = 0.39 * (total words/total sentences) + 11.8 * (total syllables/total words) – 15.59 = 0.39 * (115/5) + 11.8 * (220/115) – 15.59 = 15.95

=> very difficult to read

This method’s drawbacks include the need to count numerous elements and perform manual calculations, which is time-consuming and prone to errors.

2. Use Online Tools to Calculate Readability Scores

Online tools provide the quickest and most accurate approach to calculating your readability score. Numerous tools are available to assist you in this process, as well as tips for altering and adjusting your content to make it more readable.

Originality AI is a powerful tool that can help you check your readability score. By entering the URL, uploading, or copying and pasting your text, a readability checker can evaluate it. It determines scores by putting your text through many readability formulae. Additionally, Originality AI points out areas that need work, such as adverbs, lengthy phrases, and complicated vocabulary. It gives you useful information about the grade level of your work and is completely free.

For example, we use the Originality AI tool to help us score that same paraphrase as above. Here is the result:

What Grade Level Am I Writing? Originality AI checker

Originality AI allows you to analyze scores on multiple scales, providing a comprehensive overview to verify your results. The output is user-friendly, with sentences that require improvement highlighted in red, making it easy for you to edit and enhance the readability score.

What Reading Level Should You Write At To Rank in Google?

When writing for SEO to rank on Google, the ideal reading level often falls between a 7th to 9th-grade level (Cre: Topic Ranker Blog). The following explains why and how this range aids in ranking:

• User Engagement: Easy-to-read content increases time on the page and decreases bounce rates, which are two aspects that Google considers when ranking content. It also draws in a larger audience and keeps readers interested.
• Clear Communication: Dense language and complicated jargon might make your material difficult to grasp, driving readers away. Reading levels between the 7th and 9th grades help guarantee clarity, making information readable and useful.
• SEO Tools and Readability Scores: Lower reading levels are preferred by SEO tools like Yoast and Hemingway App since they are simpler to scan. Additionally, Google’s algorithms give preference to information that is easy for people to read.
• Consider the Audience: Higher-level language may be necessary in some niches (such as scientific or technical fields), yet even in these domains, short sentences and plain language can increase accessibility.

Maybe You Are Interested: Can Google Detect AI Content? 5 Tips to Avoid Penalization

How to Optimize Readability?

If you notice that your content is difficult to read, let’s take steps to improve its readability. The following are some of our 5 suggestions:

• Construct short sentences: You should consider using short sentences and paragraphs to lower your readability score.
• Simplify terms with 4+ syllables:  Common terms are shorter and easier for your readers to understand than big, complicated ones.
• Avoid unnecessary jargon or complex words. Instead, use clear and straightforward language, and always spell out acronyms to ensure your reader fully understands your message.
• Include headings, lists, and visuals to break down content. Enhance the readability of your content by using bullet points to make it more scannable.
• Replace adverbs: Adverbs won’t significantly impair readability, but you should use them sparingly. Replace them with verbs that are more succinct.
• Write in active voice: Active voice clarifies sentences by stating who does what. It also reduces word count, helping you share information clearly and simply.

We use these tips to enhance the readability of the paragraph above, resulting in improved clarity after editing.

“Readability relates to how easily readers can understand a document.

It includes various elements that influence how easily a reader can digest the content. Here are some of them:

• Sentence length
• Word choice
• Text construct
• Font
• etc.

High readability shows that a document is clear, engaging, and accessible to its intended audience. In contrast, the lower one indicates that the content is complex, dense, or difficult to navigate.

Readability is often assessed using tools and formulas, like the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level or Gunning Fog Index. These tools analyze linguistic features to estimate reading difficulty. Improving this score ensures that a message is effectively digested. This is essential when catering to diverse audiences with varying literacy levels.”

Readability results from Originality AI after applying tips

The readability score has significantly improved from 21.6 to 44.9 using the simple tips mentioned above.

Conclusion

In summary, figuring out “what grade level am I writing” is a useful method of assessing its readability and appropriateness for the target audience. By analyzing elements like sentence length and word choice, several tools and formulae, including Originality AI, provide insights into the complexity of your work. In the end, changing your writing’s grade level can improve clarity and increase the impact of your message on your target audience.