Measuring Prose Difficulty Using the Rauding Scale

Abstract

A NEW TECHNIQUE for estimating the difficulty of reading material has been developed and evaluated. The technique, called the Rauding Scale, involves the subjective ratings of qualified experts who use a set of anchor rating passages at grade levels 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, and 17. The reliability of the scale was high, r = .97; and the expected rating error is only about 1 grade. With respect to validity, this scale correlated higher with the actual grade levels of passages that were used in school than did cloze, Flesch, Dale-Chall, and 3 other readability formulas. Passages sampled from basal reading materials, newspapers, curriculum materials, and graduate school materials suggest that the scale provides valid grade level scores throughout the entire school range (grades 1 through 18). It was concluded that the Rauding Scale is more reliable and valid than other readability measurement techniques because it is more sensitive to the idea or concept difficulty of a passage.