Reading Level Checker
Paste any text to get its Flesch Reading Ease score and Flesch–Kincaid grade level instantly, plus a plain-English verdict. Everything runs in your browser — your text is never uploaded anywhere.
📖 How it works & FAQWhat the scores mean
This tool measures how hard your writing is to read using two classic formulas. The Flesch Reading Ease score runs from roughly 0 to 100 — higher is easier. A score of 60–70 is plain English that most adults read comfortably, 80+ is conversational, and anything under 50 starts to feel like academic or legal prose. The Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level translates the same idea into a US school grade: a result of 8.0 means a typical 8th grader could follow the text on a first read.
Both formulas rest on two simple signals: average words per sentence and average syllables per word. Long sentences and long words push scores toward “difficult”; short sentences and everyday words push them toward “easy.” Syllables are estimated by counting vowel groups in each word (with a small adjustment for silent e), which is the standard approximation used by most readability checkers. Your text never leaves the page — all counting happens in your browser.
How to use it
- Paste your text into the box — a full paragraph or more gives the most reliable scores.
- Read the results instantly: ease score, grade level, and the plain-English verdict (easy, standard, or difficult).
- Check the words-per-sentence and syllables-per-word rows to see why you got the score.
- Revise long sentences or swap complex words, and watch the scores update live as you type.
- Optionally tweak the formula constants if you want to experiment with variant scoring weights — the defaults are the official published values.
FAQ
- What is a good Flesch Reading Ease score?
- For general audiences, aim for 60–70 or higher. Marketing copy and web writing often targets 70+, while technical documentation commonly lands in the 40s and 50s.
- Why does my grade level seem high?
- Long sentences are usually the culprit. Splitting one 40-word sentence into two or three shorter ones can drop the grade level dramatically without dumbing anything down.
- Are the syllable counts exact?
- They are close approximations. Vowel-group counting handles most English words well, but unusual words, names, and abbreviations may be off by a syllable. Across a full paragraph the error averages out.
- Is my text uploaded anywhere?
- No. Everything is computed with JavaScript in your browser — nothing is sent to a server, stored, or logged.