Selamat Datang 欢 迎 Vaazhga Welcome

1. SelamatDatang欢迎VaazhgaWelcome

2. Many thanks for coming to today’s meeting Funded by the British Academy and UniversitiPendidikan Sultan Idris A project to establish a research network to explore the concept and operation of readability in a range of languages and scripts

3. What we would like from the day • To share some ideas and to make you as enthusiastic as we are about this topic • To develop some plans for building a research network • To develop a clearer view about what next

4. The Contested Concept of

5. Exploring the nature of readability • The science (or is it art) of matching texts to readers • A taken-for-granted concept – even Word does it for you! • Easily measured, easily understood http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp • It’s just about how difficult texts are to read • Isn’t it …..?

6. How difficult is this text?

7. Is this text easier or harder?

8. Word says: Reading Ease = 65.9 Reading Grade level = 6.8

9. Word says: Reading Ease = 65.4 Reading Grade level = 6.9

10. Word’s readability scores for these two texts are almost identical. Yet they are clearly different in nature and effect on the reader.

11. Exploring the nature of readability • In research into readability, measuring it has tended to get more attention than actually analysing what it is. • Measurement has usually been approached through the use of formulae. • For example, Flesch Reading Ease score = 206.835 − (1.015 × ASL) − (84.6 × ASW) Where: ASL = average sentence length (number of words divided by number of sentences); ASW = average word length in syllables (number of syllables divided by number of words)

12. Exploring readability formulae • We applied 6 commonly used readability formulae to 64 texts chosen by primary school children. • The first table shows correlations between the rank ordering of the texts by the six formulae. • The second table shows the mean grade levels assigned to the texts by the six formulae.

13. Exploring readability formulae Table 1: Spearman's rank order correlation coefficients (rho) between the SMOG, FOG, Flesch-Kincaid, Spache, Dale-Chall and ATOS formulae

14. Exploring readability formulae Table 2: The mean text grade levels predicted by the six readability formulae

15. Exploring readability formulae • These results suggest that the readability formulae (with the exception of the Dale-Chall) generally agree about which texts are harder and which are easier. • But they do not agree about the levels of difficulty of the texts. • Therefore a teacher cannot rely on them to match texts to readers.

16. Why such variability? • Various formulae measure different things • Word length • Sentence length • Unfamiliar / Difficult words • Polysyllabic words • Each of these is problematic

17. Why such variability? • Various formulae measure different things • Word length • adze • gneiss • velociraptor

18. Why such variability? • Various formulae measure different things • Sentence length • The princess kissed the frog and he turned into a handsome prince so, of course, they married and lived happily ever after. • One is and then one is not. That is the problem of man.

19. Why such variability? • Various formulae measure different things • Unfamiliar / Difficult words • rug • neighborhood

20. Why such variability? • Various formulae measure different things • Polysyllabic words • footballer • reported • strengths

21. Readability or legibility? • Which of these is more readable? • Which of these is more readable? • Which of these is more readable? • Which of these is more readable? • Which of these is more readable? • Which of these is more readable? • Which of these is more readable?

22. Legibilitycanbequitehardtodealwith

23. Readability has faded from view – or has it?

24. Readability has faded from view – or has it? • Research into readability has seriously declined in educational fields. • But the concept is still heavily used in Health and Medical fields.

25. Readability has also become theoretically problematic Most 9 year olds could ‘read’ this aloud, but not understand it.

26. Readability has also become theoretically problematic When you are told this is about washing clothes, everything becomes clear

27. Changing paradigms • Theories of readability have changed because theories of reading have changed. Think how much information the reader supplies in the following short texts. • Mary heard the ice-cream van coming down the street. She remembered her birthday money and rushed into the house. • Mary heard the bus coming down the street. She remembered her birthday money and rushed into the house.

28. Changing paradigms • Mary heard the ice-cream van coming down the street. She remembered her gun and rushed into the house. • Mary heard the ice-cream van coming down the street. She remembered her stomach and rushed into the house.

29. Non più andrai, farfallone amorosoA new model of readability