THE FRY GRAPH READABILITY FORMULAA Written Report Presented to

Prof. Rosario DumagpiDivision of Professional EducationCollege of Arts and SciencesUniversity of the Philippines Visayas

By:Jesie T. SilvaM.Ed. ESL IIApril 12, 2014

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements in READING 200The Fry Readability Formula was developed by Edward Fry who worked as a Fulbright Scholar in Uganda. From 1963 and onwards, he helped teachers teach ESL for a few years. This test is graph-based and determined readability through high school. It was validated with materials from primary and secondary schools and with results of other readability formulas. According to Fry, an individuals vocabulary continues to grow during college years. However, the reading ability varies depending on the individual and the subjects taught.Consequently, in his bookElementary Reading Instructionin 1977, Fry extended the graph to test through the college years. Fry went on to become Director of the Reading Center of Rutgers University and an authority on how people learn to read.Expanded Directions for Working Readability Graph1. Randomly select three (3) sample passages and count out exactly 100 words each beginning with the beginning of a sentence. Count proper nouns, initializations, and numerals.2. Count the number of sentences in the hundred words, estimating length of the fraction of the sentence to the nearest tenth. Get average sentence length of the three samples.3. Count the total number of syllables in each 100-word passage. Get the average number of syllables for the three passages.4. Enter graph with average sentence length and average number of syllables:plot dot where the two lines intersect. Area where dot is plotted will give you the approximate grade level. If dot falls within invalid (gray) areas, recomputed or get other samples.5. If a great deal of variability is found in syllable count or sentence counting, putting more samples into the average is desirable.6. A word is defined as a group of symbols with a space on either side: thus, Joe, IRA, 1945 and & are each one word.

The Fry Graph Readability Formula and its associated Graph are often used to provide a consensus of readability for regulatory purposes, such asreadability in the healthcare industry, to ensure a wider portion of the population can understand and access publications with a high level of readability.