Published: Friday 18 April 2025

Hemingway readability: grade 5, good, 1823 words

Making content readable

Let's start with a question. You can click the radio button to show your answer but nothing will happen. I'm not collecting data on this. It's just for fun.

How do you feel about reading? I love reading. I often read for pleasure.
I don't mind reading. I enjoy it but don't read for pleasure that much.
I don't like reading. I read if I have to but I prefer other media.
I hate reading. It's so difficult and I don't get anything from it.

If you are reading this post, I'm guessing you either like or love reading. We are the lucky ones! So much of our education and work depends on reading. For those that enjoy it, life is good! What about those that find reading difficult though? How can we support them and make the process easier?

What should I do?

Think about all the things that make reading complicated. Think about the way we write things, the words we use, and how new words might affect people. You should try to make your writing as easy to read as possible. It is still okay to write about complex subjects, but you can write in a way that makes it easier to read and understand.

Use plain English

Plain English can be difficult to explain fully. Some people naturally speak in plain English. Others find it really difficult and are not good at simplifying information.

Imagine this situation. A young child asks an adult what their job is. The adult says, I'm an investment manager. The child looks blank and thinks for a moment, before asking what investment means.

The investment manager also thinks for a moment before replying. They are rarely asked to explain this. Many adults know what it means. How can they explain it?

They say, Investment is the process of acquiring an asset or undertaking an activity with the goal of increasing its value or generating income in the future. This is, of course, the correct definition of investment but the child looks even more confused.

Young man in a suit, sitting on a seat with a little girl. She looks very confused.

Fortunately, mum is there and she explains it for her child. Investment means taking some money and making that money grow into more money. Like when you put your birthday money in your bank account and the bank gives you interest. That is an investment. But an investment manager does it with big amounts of money and tries to make the money grow as big as possible.

To write in plain English, try to do these things:

Use words that are easy to understand
Write in shorter sentences and use paragraphs to break up the text
Use images to help explain things
Use active voice, rather than passive
Use lists where relevant.

I use an online tool to help me check whether my text is easy enough to read. It is called Hemingway App . You can copy and paste your whole text into it and it will give you information about readability. I try to aim for grade 6 or lower.

It will also tell you how many words you have. Then it gives more detailed information to help you know where to make changes... where to reword your text to make it clearer. This is what it showed me for the investment definition.

Investment sentence highlighted in pink with pop up saying that the sentence is too long and complex

Before sending your document, I recommend copying the whole text into Hemingway App and seeing where you can make it easier to read.

Explain jargon and acronyms

Let's go back to the definition that the investment manager gave the child. It was full of jargon. Jargon is special words that are used by a group of people, that are difficult for others to understand. If the investment manager had used these words with his colleagues, they would have understood. The child clearly did not understand. What about other adults though? I wonder how many adults would really understand phrases like:

Acquiring an asset
Undertaking an activity
Increasing its value
Generating income for the future.

These are difficult to understand by themselves. When you put them all together in a sentence, it's even harder to understand. Before using jargon, think about whether you could use a better word. Think about your audience. Will they all understand it or will jargon exclude someone?

Acronyms and abbreviations are where we use letters to shorten something. All jobs and even social places use them. Here are some that I remember from being a teacher:

KS1 / KS2: Key stage 1 / key stage 2
PTA: Parent teacher association
IB: International Baccalaureate
SPaG: Spelling, punctuation and grammar

Now I work for the civil service, I've had to look a completely new set of acronyms. Even the names of most UK government departments are acronyms.

HMRC: His Majesty's Revenue and Customs
MoJ: Ministry of Justice
DWP: Department for Work and Pensions
DfE: Department for Education

Being an accessibility specialist has its own acronyms too. You will find them all over this website. It is okay to use acronyms but the first time you use them, you should write it in full and put the acronym in brackets. After that, you can just use the acronym. For example, I often refer to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Help with pronunciation

I've always been a good reader. I learned to read before I started nursery, at 3 years old. So did one of my sons. English isn't the easiest language to learn to read. Many words have difficult spellings. It can be difficult, when we encounter a new word to know how to pronounce it. If that word is unusual or comes from a different language or is jargon, it is even harder.

I remember, many years ago, when the Harry Potter series came out. I was reading to my niece and I encountered the name Hermione (Her-my-on-ee) for the first time. I never knew anyone by that name. I'd never seen it before. So I assumed it was a made-up name and pronounced it phonetically: Her-mee-oan. My auntie overheard and laughed at me. Of course, when she gave me the correct pronunciation, I could see it in the spelling. I felt really stupid and embarrassed though.

People who find reading difficult feel like that a lot of the time. That is not a nice way to feel. I don't want my readers to feel that way. So if I use an unusual or difficult word, I can help by giving them the pronunciation. I sometimes do that with WCAG (wuh-kag). It helps people who haven't seen it before to know how to say it.

Who does this help?

This helps people who find reading difficult. It could be any or all of the following:

People who find reading difficult
People with dyslexia
People with language impairments
People with processing difficulties
People with memory impairment
People who have a different first language

How does it help?

Think about anything you find difficult and avoid doing. If you have to do that thing, what makes it easier? What makes it less stressful? Reading is something that many of us have to do every day. I can't imagine how exhausting it is for someone who finds reading difficult. Writing documents in plain English, using simple words and sentences, explaining jargon and helping with pronunciation, can all help to make reading that bit easier.

What standards does this relate to?

COGA 3 Use clear and understandable content

This guideline says:

Help users understand the message and purpose of the page by using:

easy to understand words

short sentences

simple tense

short blocks of text

unambiguous content

clear images, and

easy to understand videos.

The COGA webpage gives more detailed information about this. It explains how to do each thing. If you are a content creator, you should read it in full.

WCAG 3.1.3 Unusual words

This AAA level success criterion says:

A mechanism is available for identifying specific definitions of words or phrases used in an unusual or restricted way, including idioms and jargon.

On webpages, there are some specific ways you can do this. In documents, it is usually best to give definitions on the page. If there are a few, you could put them in a table. If there are many, a glossary might be better.

WCAG 3.1.4 Abbreviations

This AAA level success criterion says:

A mechanism for identifying the expanded form or meaning of abbreviations is available.

For webpages, there is code to make this easier. In documents, the best way is to write it in full the first time and put the acronym or abbreviation in brackets after it. Then you can use the abbreviation for the rest of the text.

WCAG 3.1.5 Reading level

This AAA level success criterion says:

When text requires reading ability more advanced than the lower secondary education level after removal of proper names and titles, supplemental content, or a version that does not require reading ability more advanced than the lower secondary education level, is available.

Ironically, the wording of this is the exact opposite of what it means!

Lower secondary education level is the first 7 to 9 years of school. In the UK, that is Key Stage 3, or Y7 to Y9. Other countries, including the US use the grades system. My last teaching job in England was with Y6. That is age 10 - 11. Comparing an adult's reading to that of a Y6 child is not always helpful. The level of reading and comprehension expected at Y6 is actually quite high. It is higher than many adults would achieve. However, even adults who find reading difficult will usually have better vocabulary and life experience. This means they can understand more adult content than children. Reading and understanding is not just sounding out words.

As I said earlier, I aim to keep my writing at grade 6 or below. I think that will allow most people to read and understand it.

WCAG 3.1.6 Pronunciation

This AAA level success criterion says:

A mechanism is available for identifying specific pronunciation of words where meaning of the words, in context, is ambiguous without knowing the pronunciation.

This criterion only applies where the correct pronunciation is needed for meaning. Examples of this might include heteronyms. Heteronyms are words with the same spelling but different pronunciation. For example:

minute(min-it): a period of time equal to 60 seconds
minute(my-newt): very small
desert(dez-ut): a place where nothing grows
desert(di-zert): abandon

Whether pronunciation affects meaning or not, I would give the pronunication of words that are particularly difficult. As with abbreviations, in webpages, there is code to make this easier. For documents, I would give the pronunciation in brackets after the word.

The most important thing

Why are you writing your document? Is the main purpose to communicate important information or to show how clever you are at writing? If you want your message to be read and understood, make it easy for your readers.