Text Toolkit

Readability Checker

Score your writing with 7 readability formulas. See grade level, difficulty highlights, and improvement suggestions.

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Target audience

Determines whether the overall grade fits your readers.

Enter at least a few sentences in the input above to analyse readability.

About this tool

Score your writing with seven readability formulas — Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level, Gunning Fog, Coleman–Liau, SMOG, Automated Readability Index, and Dale–Chall — and see exactly which sentences are dragging your grade level up.

Pick a target audience (children, general, professional, or academic) and the checker tells you whether your text is a fit. The annotated text view highlights moderate and hard sentences inline so you can rewrite the offenders without scanning for them.

Suggestions cover the three most common readability problems: long sentences, complex vocabulary, and overall difficulty. Use them as a checklist; rerun the analysis after each edit to see your score move.

Frequently asked questions

  • What is a good Flesch Reading Ease score?
    60–70 is "plain English" — comfortable for most adults. Below 30 is academic/specialist territory. Above 80 is conversational, appropriate for children's books and accessible health content. Web content for general audiences typically aims for 60+.
  • What grade level should I write at?
    Match the audience. General-public content (news, blog posts): grade 7–9. Web copy aimed at conversion: grade 6–8. Academic writing: grade 13+. Plain-language guidance for government and health writing recommends grade 6–8.
  • How is reading level calculated?
    Most formulas combine sentence length and word complexity. Flesch–Kincaid uses syllables per word; Coleman–Liau uses characters; Dale–Chall uses a curated 3,000-word "easy" list. Scores converge for typical prose but diverge for technical writing or very short text.
  • What is the Gunning Fog Index?
    A grade-level estimate combining average sentence length with the percentage of "complex words" (≥3 syllables). Formula: 0.4 × (words/sentences + 100 × complex/words). A Fog Index of 12 means the text needs a high-school senior's reading skill.
  • How can I make my writing more readable?
    Shorten sentences (aim for under 20 words on average). Replace polysyllabic words with simpler synonyms. Break long paragraphs. Use the active voice. Read your work aloud — anywhere you stumble is a candidate for revision.