landmarks

This page highlights landmark in readability theory, readability testing and literacy studies.

1893 Lucius Sherman's Analytics of Literature, A Manual for
the Objective Study of English Prose and Poetry

1921 Edward Thorndike's Teacher’s Word Book

1921 Harry Kitson's The Mind of the Buyer

1923 Child's Reading Formula from Bertha Lively & S L Pressey

1926 Standard Test Lessons in Reading by William McCall & Lelah Crabbs

1928 Winnetka Reading Formula from Mabel Vogel & Carleton Washburne

1929 US high school formula from Alfred Lewerenz

1931 What People Want to Read About by Douglas Waples & Ralph Tyler

1934 adult readability formula from Tyler & Edgar Dale

1935 What Makes a Book Readable by William Gray & Bernice Leary

1937 Guy Buswell's University of Chicago civilian literacy study

1938 The Semantic Count of the 570 Commonest English Words by Irving Lorge

1939 Lorge's readability formula

1943 Rudolf Flesch's Marks of a Readable Style dissertation

1948 Flesch's Reading Ease Formula

1948 Dale-Chall Formula from Edgar Dale & Jeanne Chall

1949 George Zipf's Human Behavior & The Principle of Least Effort

1952 The Technique of Clear Writing by Robert Gunning

1952 Gunning Fog Index

1953 Cloze Test Procedure: A New Tool for Measuring Readability by Wilson Taylor

1953 Spache formula

1963 George Klare's The Measurement of Readability

1965 Coleman Formulas from Edmund Coleman

1967 US Army Automated Readability Index (ARI) from Smith & Senter

1968 SMOG formula from McLaughlin

1969 Fry Readability Graph from Edward Fry

1969 Bormuth Mean Cloze formula

1973 FORCAST formula from Caylor, Sticht, Fox & Ford

1973 Harris-Jacobson primary readability formula

1975 Singer Eyeball Estimate of Readability (SEER) from Singer

1975 US Navy Readability Indexes (NRI) from Kincaid, Fishburne, Rogers & Chissom

1976 Flesch-Kincaid Formula

1976 US Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB)

1977 Air Force Transformational Formula from Williams, Siegel, Burkett & Groff

1979 Charrow-Charrow jury instruction study by Robert Charrow & Veda Charrow

1979 Hull formula for technical writing from Leon Hull

1981 Duffy-Kabance study by Thomas Duffy & Paula Kabance

1983 Susan Kemper's Mental Load Formula

1987 Degrees of Reading Progress (DRP) from Koslin et al

1996 Qualitative Assessment of Text Difficulty by Chall

2003 Advantage-TASA Open Standard (ATOS) formula





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