Readability Checker
Flesch reading ease, grade level, Fog and SMOG scores with long sentences highlighted
Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type or upload is sent to us or stored.
Results are for general guidance. Please check anything important before relying on it. Terms of use
How to Use
- Paste or type your English text into Your English text: an essay, answer, blog post, email, notice or report. Click Try a sample to see an example.
- The Flesch reading ease score (0–100, higher is easier) and five grade-level scores update as you type.
- Check the counts: sentences, syllables, words per sentence, the share of hard words and the reading time.
- Under Long sentences, choose a limit (over 20, 25 or 30 words). Long sentences are highlighted in your text so you can split them.
- Use the list of words with 3+ syllables to find long words you could replace with simpler ones, then paste the edited text to see the new score.
How easy is your writing to read?
Readability formulas estimate how hard a piece of English text is, using two things that are easy to count: how long the sentences are and how long the words are. Long sentences full of long words are harder to follow. This checker runs the six best-known formulas on your text, highlights long sentences and lists the longest words, so you can see exactly what to simplify. It is useful for school and college assignments, blog posts, product pages, government and bank notices, and any message that must be understood the first time.
The formulas
Flesch–Kincaid grade = 0.39 × (words ÷ sentences) + 11.8 × (syllables ÷ words) − 15.59
Gunning Fog = 0.4 × [(words ÷ sentences) + 100 × (complex words ÷ words)]
SMOG = 1.0430 × √(words of 3+ syllables × 30 ÷ sentences) + 3.1291
Coleman–Liau = 0.0588 × L − 0.296 × S − 15.8 (L = letters per 100 words, S = sentences per 100 words)
ARI = 4.71 × (letters ÷ words) + 0.5 × (words ÷ sentences) − 21.43
Flesch Reading Ease is a score where higher means easier. The other five give a US school grade, which lines up roughly with the same class number in Indian schools: a grade of 8 means a typical Class 8 student should follow it. “Complex words” for Gunning Fog are words of three or more syllables, leaving out names, hyphenated compounds and words that reach three syllables only through -es, -ed or -ing.
Worked example
“The cat sat on the mat.” has 6 words, 1 sentence and 6 syllables. Flesch Reading Ease = 206.835 − 1.015 × 6 − 84.6 × 1 = 116.1 (scores above 100 are possible for very simple text), and Flesch–Kincaid grade = 0.39 × 6 + 11.8 × 1 − 15.59 = −1.5. The sample paragraph in the tool, about the RBI repo rate, has 84 words in 4 sentences with 132 syllables: 206.835 − 1.015 × 21 − 84.6 × 1.57 ≈ 52.6, “fairly difficult”, mainly because one sentence runs to 44 words.
What the Flesch score means
| Score | Difficulty | Roughly suits |
|---|---|---|
| 90–100 | Very easy | Class 5 |
| 80–90 | Easy | Class 6 |
| 70–80 | Fairly easy | Class 7 |
| 60–70 | Plain English | Class 8–9; a good target for public information |
| 50–60 | Fairly difficult | Class 10–12 |
| 30–50 | Difficult | College |
| 0–30 | Very difficult | Graduate, legal and technical text |
How syllables are counted (and the limits)
Syllables can't be counted exactly without a pronunciation dictionary, so the tool uses spelling rules. It counts groups of vowels (a, e, i, o, u, y), drops a silent final “e” (make) but keeps a consonant + “le” (table), drops silent “-es” and “-ed” (makes, jumped) but keeps them where they are spoken (boxes, wanted), adds a syllable for vowel pairs that are usually split (ratio, media, usual, video), and checks a short list of common exceptions such as “people” and “business”. On everyday words it agrees with dictionary counts nearly every time, but unusual words, names and borrowed words can be off by one. Numbers count as one word of one syllable.
These formulas were designed for English only. Hindi, Gujarati or other Indian-language text, and Hinglish written in Roman letters, will give meaningless scores. They also measure only length, not meaning: a short sentence full of jargon can still score as “easy”, so read your text aloud as a final check.
Quick ways to raise your score
- Split any sentence over 25 words into two; this usually helps more than changing words.
- Prefer short, common words: “use” instead of “utilise”, “buy” instead of “purchase”, “help” instead of “facilitate”.
- Write in the active voice: “The bank will refund the charge” rather than “The charge will be refunded by the bank”.
- Use lists for steps and conditions instead of long sentences joined with “and”, “which” and “therefore”.