Why reading age is important
We aim for a reading age of 9 as we like to keep things simple
Why target such a low age you might ask? Well, over 7 million adults in the UK have a reading age below 10.
Everyone finds basic words and sentences easier to read. Especially when people skim read.
We’re always looking to make our content more accessible.
Simple example
- What would make you choose a refurbished phone?
- What would make you consider buying a refurbished phone?
This takes the reading age from 13 in the original sentence, to one of 10.
How to check reading age?
There are a few tools we can use to find out the reading age, the most popular being Grammarly.
If you already use Grammarly, start a new document and copy your text on to it. If you don’t, add it to your browser, it’s free.
Click the ‘See performance’ button on the top right-hand side of the screen.
Like magic, a lovely pop up will appear giving you all sorts of useful tips, one of which is the reading age.
Other tools
Another app you can use is Hemingway Editor. This will instantly show you the reading age on the right side of the document.
And if all else fails, there’s alway good old Microsoft Word. Readability scores fall under the grammar and spelling tab.
It’s best to test your text on different tools as the age can change depending on which tool you use.