Readability Formulae and McCall-Crabbs Standard Test Lessons in Reading.
1980; Wiley; Volume: 33; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1936-2714
Autores Tópico(s)Second Language Acquisition and Learning
ResumoSOME of the most popular read ability formulae have a common fundamental shortcoming: They have used the McCall-Crabbs Standard Test Lessons in Reading (McCall and Crabbs 1925,1950,1961) as their criterion. This instrument is poorly standardized and was never intended for such research purposes as those to which it has been put. Among the formulae that use the Test Lessons as the criterion of difficulty are the Lorge formula (1939) and its revision (Tretiak 1969), the Flesch formula (1943) and its revisions (Powers, Sumner and Kearl 1958, Tretiak 1969), the Dale-Chall formula (1948) and its revisions (Powers, Sumner and Kearl 1958, Holmquist 1968), the Farr-Jenkins Paterson formula (1951), the Fog Index (Gunning 1952), the Danielson Bryan formula (1963), and the SMOG grading (McLaughlin 1969). It has been assumed that the McCall-Crabbs Standard Test Les sons are adequate instruments for use as the criterion for readability formulae. Such a noted authority on readability measurement as Klare (1974-75) stated: these lessons [the McCall-Crabbs Standard Test Les sons] have been convenient statisti cally because there are a large number of reading passages, covering a wide range of difficulty, resting upon extensive testing and providing detailed grade scores. While investigating the possible use of the McCall-Crabbs Standard
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