Fernández Huerta Readability Index to Score Spanish Texts
Fernández Huerta Readability Index is a tool that scores the readability of texts in Spanish. The index, akin to the Flesch-Kincaid Tests for English, is designed to estimate the "reading ease" of a given text. The formula assesses the difficulty based on sentence length and syllable count per word. The final score correlates to a reading scale which reveals how easy or difficult it is to read the text upon first reading.
José Fernández Huerta published his formula in an article titled "Medidas sencillas de lecturabilidad" ("Simple Measures of Readability"). It appeared in "Consigna," a pedagogical magazine associated with the Sección Femenina de Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista (FET y de las JONS), which was the only legal political party during Francoist Spain. In this work, Fernández Huerta discussed methods for scoring text readability, which is relevant in educational and pedagogical contexts.
The Fernández Huerta Readability Index is:
The original formula outputs a number to find the reading level of a text. We added students' ages and grade levels to each readability level to help you visualize who your reader is. Based on other grade-level formulas, like Flesch-Kincaid, SMOG, Gunning Fog, etc., we know an "average" reading level is usually 8th grade, "difficult" appears in 11-12th grade texts, and below 5th grade is deemed "easy", we can fill in the remaining levels with certainty.
José Fernández Huerta published his formula in an article titled "Medidas sencillas de lecturabilidad" ("Simple Measures of Readability"). It appeared in "Consigna," a pedagogical magazine associated with the Sección Femenina de Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista (FET y de las JONS), which was the only legal political party during Francoist Spain. In this work, Fernández Huerta discussed methods for scoring text readability, which is relevant in educational and pedagogical contexts.
The Fernández Huerta Readability Index is:
\( \text{Readability} = 206.835 -
(60 \times \text{ASL}) -
(1.02 \times \text{ASW}) \)
where ASL = Average Sentence Length; ASW = Average Syllables Per Word
- Average Sentence Length is the number of words divided by the number of sentences.
- Average Syllables Per Word is the total number of syllables in the text divided by the total number of words.
| Score Range (L) | Readability Level | U.S. Education Level | Spain's Education Level | Age Group | Reading Grade Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 101 - | Extremely Easy | 1st - 3rd Grade | 1º - 3º Primaria | 6-8 year olds | 2.5 |
| 90 - 100 | Very Easy | 4th Grade | 4º Primaria | 9-10 year olds | 4 |
| 80 - 89 | Easy | 5th Grade | 5º Primaria | 10-11 year olds | 5 |
| 70 - 79 | Somewhat Easy | 6th Grade | 6º Primaria | 11-12 year olds | 6 |
| 60 - 69 | Average | 7th-8th Grade | 1º - 2º ESO | 12-14 year olds | 7.5 |
| 50 - 59 | Slightly Difficult | 9th-10th Grade | 3º - 4º ESO | 14-16 year olds | 9.5 |
| 30 - 49 | Difficult | 11th-12th Grade | 1º - 2º Bachillerato | 16-18 year olds | 11.5 |
| Less than 30 | Extremely Difficult | College | Universidad | 18+ year olds | 13 |
The original formula outputs a number to find the reading level of a text. We added students' ages and grade levels to each readability level to help you visualize who your reader is. Based on other grade-level formulas, like Flesch-Kincaid, SMOG, Gunning Fog, etc., we know an "average" reading level is usually 8th grade, "difficult" appears in 11-12th grade texts, and below 5th grade is deemed "easy", we can fill in the remaining levels with certainty.
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