Hi all,
I have just discovered a tool that might be... well, if not handy then at least interesting!
Microsoft Word has a tool that lets you check on the readability of text, including the age level it will be suitable for. It's called the Flesch-Kincaid readability test. To have a look, you need to make sure you've got the option selected on MS Word, so you go to Tools, Options, Spelling & Grammar, and make sure you've got 'show readability statistics' checked. Then when you do a spellcheck, it will come up with readability statistics like 'Flesch reading ease' (the higher it is, the easier your story reads- I think it goes up to 100) and 'Flesch-Kincaide Grade Level' which tells you what grade (in the American schooling system) your text is appropriate for. Non-Americans can find out what age of child is in which grade by looking on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._grade_level#School_grades
Anyway, I have no idea how helpful or accurate it is, but my old job used to use it when creating documents that might be read by younger people, to make sure we were on the right track.
Might be useless but worth having a look out of curiosity!
I have just discovered a tool that might be... well, if not handy then at least interesting!
Microsoft Word has a tool that lets you check on the readability of text, including the age level it will be suitable for. It's called the Flesch-Kincaid readability test. To have a look, you need to make sure you've got the option selected on MS Word, so you go to Tools, Options, Spelling & Grammar, and make sure you've got 'show readability statistics' checked. Then when you do a spellcheck, it will come up with readability statistics like 'Flesch reading ease' (the higher it is, the easier your story reads- I think it goes up to 100) and 'Flesch-Kincaide Grade Level' which tells you what grade (in the American schooling system) your text is appropriate for. Non-Americans can find out what age of child is in which grade by looking on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._grade_level#School_grades
Anyway, I have no idea how helpful or accurate it is, but my old job used to use it when creating documents that might be read by younger people, to make sure we were on the right track.
Might be useless but worth having a look out of curiosity!
