Readability Analyzer

Find out how easy your English writing is to read, using five classic formulas: Flesch reading ease, Flesch-Kincaid grade, Gunning fog, Coleman-Liau and the Automated Readability Index. It also reports word and sentence counts, average sentence length and the share of long words, with a plain-English label for the level.

How to use it

1. Paste your text.
2. Read the reading ease and grade levels.
3. Check the average sentence length.
4. Shorten long sentences and check again.

When it helps

• Writing for a general audience.
• Checking web content or instructions.
• Matching a target reading level.
• Teaching clear writing.

Good to know

• For most web content, aim for a grade of about 8 or lower.
• Shorter sentences and shorter words improve every score.
• Syllables are estimated, so use the scores as guidance.

What the scores measure

Flesch reading ease runs from about 0 to 100, with higher meaning easier. It rewards short sentences and short words. The grade-level scores, such as Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning fog and Coleman-Liau, estimate the US school grade needed to understand the text, so 8 means an eighth-grader could follow it.

All of them rely on two things: how long your sentences are and how long your words are. None of them understands meaning, so they can't tell whether your argument is clear, only whether your sentences are short enough to be comfortable.

Worked example: tightening a sentence

Consider "It is essential that organisations endeavour to communicate effectively with their stakeholders." That scores as difficult. Rewrite it as "Organisations should talk clearly to the people they serve." and the grade level drops sharply, because the sentence is shorter and the words are simpler.

Make one change at a time and re-run the analyzer. You'll quickly learn which habits push your score up, such as long lead-ins and stacked adjectives.

How to use scores sensibly

Don't chase a perfect number. A technical manual for engineers can be harder than a blog post without being bad writing. What matters is that your readers can follow it comfortably. Use the scores to find the hardest passages, and read those aloud.

Also be aware that the tool estimates syllables by counting vowel groups, which is wrong for some words. The results are close enough for guidance, but two tools may differ by a point or two.

Readability beyond scores

Layout matters as much as vocabulary. Short paragraphs, descriptive headings, bullet points and plenty of white space make text far easier to scan, even if the sentences are the same.

Clear writing also depends on structure: lead with the main point, give reasons after it, and cut anything that doesn't help the reader.

Quick ways to improve a score

Split sentences longer than 25 words, replace long words with shorter ones, and cut introductory phrases. Re-run the analyzer after each edit to see which change helped most.

Questions