About the author
Cortney Bruno, a program manager at the Center for Literacy, is on the Notebook editorial board.
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Can you read this? Some District materials aren’t easy
School communications aimed at parents often do not match the literacy levels of their intended audience.
by Cortney Bruno
In a city where nearly one third of adults over 25 lack a high school diploma or GED, the School District’s printed materials aimed at parents could be missing much of their targeted audience.
The Notebook reviewed a number of District letters, forms, and brochures for parents and analyzed their readability using a computerized test. Many of the materials measured as high as a 12th grade reading level.
“Given the population in Philadelphia, I w ould assume that would be difficult for many parents to read,” commented Alisa Belzer, associate professor at Rutgers University and a specialist in adult literacy.
When analyzed on readability tests, some of the poorest-scoring District materials are documents intended to help parents get involved and make decisions about their child’s education.
The District’s parental involvement policy, a letter introducing the policy, and the Student Code of Conduct all topped out at the 12th grade level. So did a letter explaining supplementary tutoring services and one informing parents that their child is being taught by an emergency-certified teacher.
District officials say they have put resources into developing attractive and more readable pieces for parents, such as a colorful “Parent Connection” brochure. And some of the District’s written notifications to parents – voluntary transfer forms, letters informing parents about teachers with emergency certification, and the Title I parent involvement policy – are translated into multiple languages, including Albanian, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, French, and Russian.
But when tested for readability of text, many of these same documents scored poorly.
National data show that over 40 percent of adults lack proficiency in prose literacy skills. A poor readability score is a red flag that a document may not be accessible to this segment of the population.
Diane Inverso of the Mayor’s Commission on Literacy noted that when a readability test indicates that a document is written at a high reading level, it “is telling you that mechanically it’s difficult to read. If they’re struggling with that, they’re not going to do well with comprehension,” said Inverso.
The Notebook assessed readability using the “Flesch Reading Ease” and “Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level” tests (both available in the grammar checker on Microsoft Word software). The Flesch formulas, among the most widely used and validated formulas, base readability on word and sentence length. A grade level of 12.0 is the maximum score on the Flesch-Kincaid test. The Flesch Reading Ease scores ranges from zero to 100, zero being the lowest possible score.
But readability formulas are not a perfect science.
“They make an assumption that because a word has few letters or syllables, it is easier to read,” explained Judi Taylor-Dunn, director of educational services at the Center for Literacy. “For instance, the readability for the word ‘muse’ is the same for the word ‘them.’ But, you and I know more people are able to comprehend the word ‘them’ than the word ‘muse.’”
There are other factors that affect readability as well, Taylor-Dunn said, including “the visual space or layout, font size, use of pictures, inferences or background knowledge required by the reader in order to comprehend the message.”
“Another important issue is the sheer amount of information being presented,” she added.
The District appears to have taken some of these factors into account in creating some of its more readable materials such as its Parent Connection brochure, its SMART Program brochure, and voluntary transfer forms.
The Notebook’s analysis of text samples from these materials resulted in a wide range of readability scores. Some portions came in at the seventh grade level, while other parts came in as high as twelfth grade on the Flesch-Kincaid.
There are no hard data for literacy rates in Philadelphia. But results of the National Assessment of Adult Literacy show that 43 percent of adults fall into the “basic” and “below basic” categories. This study suggests that nearly half of all adults would struggle with high-school-level text.
For adults scoring in these proficiency levels, literacy acts as a barrier to accessing a wide range of information. For example, newspapers have a reputation of being written to the average reader’s abilities. But it’s not uncommon for articles in newspapers like the Inquirer, the New York Times, and this newspaper to be written at a twelfth grade level as measured by the Flesch-Kincaid.
“Writing something at a lower level is not something we are taught to do,” said Inverso. Creating accessible materials “takes a different mindset,” she added.
Involving parents in the process is a strategy suggested by literacy experts. “One solution would be to make it more of a collaborative effort,” said Belzer of Rutgers University.
For the District’s most readable piece tested, its Parent Connections brochure, the District did not run a formal focus group. However, parent input was taken into consideration.
“We have had the involvement of parents in the production and research that we do – and some feedback afterwards in terms of utility,” said Cecilia Cummings, executive vice president of communications for the District.
Still, she acknowledged there is room for improvement in District materials. “We would like to make the commitment and invest in having a consultant on hand to help us with readability,” said Cummings.