Newspapers in the Classroom: Picking the Right Paper

There are plenty of newspapers with extra components for use by teachers — weekly highlighted articles, lesson plans, maybe even sections written at a level more appropriate for young readers.  But if you just want to pull in the local paper, there may not be any special programs attached. 

Sometimes we can just go by general feel when trying to decide whether or not a piece of writing is at the right level for our students.  If we want something more measured, however, and we’re not working with a publication that’s necessarily meant for the classroom, there are a few ways of going about it.

The two I’m using here are just estimations, and their results don’t actually match.  They’re consistent, though — the first method is almost always about two reading levels higher than the second — so it gives you a general frame of reference.  And, of course, these are good for more than just newspapers.  Any text you can copy-paste (or type in) can be leveled.

What I do is go to the newspaper’s website and find either the article I’m specifically using that day in digital format, or, several related articles just to get an average reading level. 

1. Leveling your Paper with Microsoft Word

This is for Word on Microsoft 7.  It might actually be easier to change these settings on earlier versions; from what I remember, the “tools” area was much more accessible there.

• Go to the Office button in the top left corner of Word.  At the bottom of the drop-down menu are two small buttons — “Word Options” and “Exit Word.”  Choose “Word Options.”

• On the left are your categories; go to “Proofing.”  Look for the third heading down in the section - “When correcting spelling and grammar in Word” - and check the last box that says “Show readability statistics.”

Now, when you spell-check a document, you’ll get an extra window at the end that will tell you your counts, averages, and readability.  For example, Word tells me the Flesch-Kinkaid reading level of this blog post up to the beginning of the directions is grade 9.9.

You’ll see in a second, though, why you should take that with a grain of salt.  (But hey.  Apparently I could write these things for high schoolers!)

2. Leveling your Paper with Online Generators

There are a number of online tools with which to assess the readability of a text — just search “readability calculator” or “reading level generator” in Google.  Some are more potentially accurate than others, and I’d recommend testing a few out before you pick one to stick with.  These are the two I use to get a balanced number.

OKAPI! assesses the readability using the Dale-Chall index and will also underline difficult vocabulary, give a word-count at the end of each line of text, and, at the end of the text, specify the formula used to find the raw score and grade level.  According to OKAPI!, the same entry as in Word scored on a 7th-8th grade level.

The Readability Calculator at Online-Utility.org gives you the approximate grade level based on multiple tests.  This is what my sample looked like:

What makes this tool unique is that it also offers a list of sentences to consider revising in order to improve readability.

You might notice, by the way, that the Flesch Kincaid score I get from the Readability Calculator is not the same score that I got from Word.  I don’t know exactly what it is that each does to get those scores, or how they come out differently, but it’s just another of those examples of YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).

And lastly, for anyone who really wants to get into the nitty-gritty, I found this article that walks you through calculating the levels yourself, by hand.  I personally don’t know who would have the time to do this on a regular basis, but I have to admit that doing it at least once sounds like it could be fun.