Reading Level Checker
Pick your audience, paste your text, and see where it lands: the named Flesch-Kincaid grade, the honest range across five formulas, and the exact sentences raising your level.
Analysis runs in your browser and your text is never uploaded. By default the draft lives in this tab only and disappears when you close it. Ticking the box stores it in this browser's local storage on this device; Clear wipes it. Avoid the box on shared computers if the text is sensitive.
Type or paste text to compare it against your target grade.
The bar is capped at 0 and 100 for display. The number above is the raw formula value and can leave that range.
Formulas disagree because they weigh sentence length, syllables and letters differently. That spread is real information, so no synthetic average is shown.
Syllables are an English estimate from a heuristic, not a pronunciation dictionary. Possible passive is a be-verb plus participle pattern with common adjectives filtered out; review each match, it is a pointer and not a verdict.
Sentences to review
Ranked by how much each sentence adds to your scores. Click a sentence to select it in the editor. Dismiss anything you disagree with; dismissals last until you clear or reload.
Nothing flagged yet. Long sentences, complex-word clusters and possible passive constructions will appear here.
Choosing a target grade that fits your readers
The grade bands are simpler than they look. Grades 1 to 5 read as children's material and are rarely a goal for adult copy. Grade 6 to 8 is plain English: the zone most major news outlets, government plain-language programs and health communicators aim for, because it stays comfortable for busy adults without feeling simplified. Grade 9 to 12 suits professional audiences who expect density. Anything above grade 13 reads like academic writing and should be a deliberate choice, not an accident of long sentences.
When your text lands above target, the fix is almost never vocabulary alone. The sentences-to-review list on this page ranks the exact sentences doing the damage: splitting one 40-word sentence usually moves the level more than swapping ten words.
Reading level FAQ
What reading level should I write at?
Match the audience, not a universal rule. Plain-language and health writing usually targets grade 6 or below because readers are often stressed, rushed or reading in a second language. General web content lands well at grade 7 to 9. B2B, legal and technical material can run at grade 10 to 12 for readers who process dense text daily. Pick the audience preset above and the checker scores you against that target.
How is a reading level measured?
Formulas like Flesch-Kincaid convert average sentence length and syllables per word into a US school grade. That makes reading level a measure of surface difficulty: long sentences and long words raise it, short ones lower it. It says nothing about whether the content itself is clear or correct, which is why this page frames every result as an estimate against your target rather than proof of comprehension.
Is a reading level the same as a reading age?
They express the same idea on different scales. A US grade level maps roughly to age by adding five: grade 8 text suits a typical 13 year old. UK tools often speak in reading age directly. This checker reports US grade because the underlying formulas were built and validated on that scale.
Why does this checker not say what percent of people can read my text?
Because no formula can know that. A grade number is arithmetic on sentence and word lengths, not a survey of real readers, and converting it into a precise population percentage adds false authority to an estimate. This checker compares your text against the target grade you chose and leaves claims about actual comprehension to actual reader testing.
More free tools: Readability Checker · Flesch-Kincaid Calculator · Flesch Reading Ease · Word Counter