Flesch-Kincaid grade level & Reading Ease — for any text
For guidance only. This is an automated estimate of reading difficulty, not a guarantee of comprehension or a measure of whether the writing is good. Readability formulas only measure surface features — sentence length and syllable count — not clarity, organization, accuracy, or appropriate jargon. All calculation happens in your browser; your text is never uploaded or stored.
Paste any English text and this checker computes the two canonical Kincaid et al. (1975) readability scores: the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (a U.S. school grade) and the Flesch Reading Ease (a 0–100-ish ease score where higher = easier). It also shows the average sentence length, average syllables per word, the raw word/sentence/syllable counts, and a plain-English audience suggestion.
Tip: you can pre-fill the box from a link — add ?text=Your+text+here to the page URL to share a checker link with the text already loaded.
Take a 19-word, single-sentence paragraph that totals 29 syllables:
Notice the two scores move opposite ways: a higher grade level pairs with a lower Reading Ease. Shortening that sentence into two would raise the Reading Ease and lower the grade.
Reading Ease = 206.835 − 1.015 × (words / sentences) − 84.6 × (syllables / words)
Grade Level = 0.39 × (words / sentences) + 11.8 × (syllables / words) − 15.59The coefficients are exact and fixed — do not "tune" them. Syllables are counted with the standard vowel-group heuristic: count runs of vowels (a, e, i, o, u, y), drop a silent trailing "e" (but keep "consonant + le" endings like table or little), and floor every word at one syllable.
| Score | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 90–100 | Very easy (5th grade) |
| 80–90 | Easy (6th grade) |
| 70–80 | Fairly easy (7th grade) |
| 60–70 | Plain English (8th–9th grade) |
| 50–60 | Fairly difficult (10th–12th grade) |
| 30–50 | Difficult (college) |
| 10–30 | Very difficult (college graduate) |
| below 10 | Extremely difficult (professional) |
Scores can mathematically go above 100 (max ≈ 121.2) or below 0; this tool shows the true value and maps it to the nearest band, while Microsoft Word historically caps the display at 100.
. ! ?, so periods inside abbreviations (Mr., e.g., U.S.A.) or decimals (3.14) can raise the sentence count and shift the score — most noticeable on short samples.<iframe src="https://snaptoolsuite.com/readability-checker/?embed=1"
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The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) translates your text into a U.S. school grade using FKGL = 0.39 × (words/sentence) + 11.8 × (syllables/word) − 15.59. A score of 8.0 means roughly an 8th-grader could read it. Higher means harder.
Most general web and business writing aims for grade 7–8, which is a Flesch Reading Ease of about 60–70 ("plain English"). Lower grade levels reach a broader audience; aim for the grade that matches your readers, not the lowest possible number.
This tool uses the standard vowel-group heuristic: it counts runs of vowels (a, e, i, o, u, y), drops a silent trailing "e" (but keeps "-le" endings like "table"), and floors every word at one syllable. It is about 85–90% accurate per word, so scores can differ by ~0.5–1 grade from Word or other tools.
The formulas are identical and fixed — the difference is in how syllables and sentences are counted. Word handles abbreviations and decimals differently and historically caps Reading Ease at 100. This tool shows the true math, including values above 100 or below zero, so a ~0.5–1 grade difference is normal.
No — they move opposite ways. Easy text scores HIGH on Flesch Reading Ease (closer to 100) and LOW on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. They both come from sentence length and syllables per word but use different coefficients, so they will not perfectly agree.
No. The entire calculation runs in your browser. Your text is never sent to a server, uploaded, or stored. The tool works offline once the page has loaded.
Aim for at least ~100 words. Short samples swing wildly because a single long sentence or one polysyllabic word moves the ratios a lot. The tool warns you when a sample is too short to be reliable.
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