Text Readability Assessment

Although Chinese scholars have paid a lot of attention to textbook evaluation inrecent years, and have got great achievement, there are still many problems."Readability" as an indispensable part of the textbook evaluation, has been givenmuch attention in foreign countries and China’s Hong Kong and Taiwan. However, inChina, it has been ignored. It is very important whether the content, form andexpression of textbook are easy for teachers and students to use, especially forstudents to read and understand. That’s because textbooks suitable for students tolearn, read and understand can be called "good" textbooks. So this paper has analysedtextbook readability, its evaluation method, has reviewed textbook evaluation in ourcountry and has described the author’s some thought.The main content of this paper is divided into five parts:The first part---introduction describes the background, significance, methods andstatus of this research. And it has pointed out the significance of the textbookreadability analysis and how to improve the products of textbooks, reading comfort,as well as students’ reading learning effects, according to student s’physical andmental development characteristics and laws, as well as need of social and timesdevelopment. Part of the literature review summarizes research of textbook evaluationand textbook readability in the mainland and Taiwan, and what have been going on inforeign countries, especially in the field of textbook readability.The second part--- the theoretical basis of textbook readability evaluation hasclarified the concept of "textbook" and "textbook readability", and analysed itstheoretical basis, including the cognitive psychology theoretical basis of textbooklanguage, text structure and textbook illustration.The third part--- analysis of factors that have impact on textbook readability, haspointed out three factors, including the application of the textbooks language andillustrations, and the substance of textbooks showing. Textbook content languageapplications includes not only the statement text of this surface structure factors, and another deep-seated structure---text structure, that is how the thinking and concept inthe text are linked to convey information; Illustrations not only make the textbookmore beautiful, attractive, and more important, enable students have multi-channelaccess to information and its significance of the text, thereby enhancing thereadability of textbooks; Textbook material showing mainly include the printing andlayout.The fourth part--- methods of textbook readability evaluation include threemethods. The three methods are readability formula evaluation method, theillustrations evaluation table method and graphic organizers. Readability formulaevaluation method is one that textbook writers, publishers, users (mainly schoolteachers) and the evaluators make full use of to evaluate whether the language of thetextbooks and text materials easy to read, understand, according to readabilityformulas; Illustrations evaluation table method is one that textbooks evaluatorsdetermine the illustrations evaluation dimension contains indicators and makeillustrations evaluation form on the basis of certain educational research methods,according to the rating criteria, scoring evaluation, and ultimately by the researchersillustrated the level of quality comprehensive evaluation of the scientific method;Graphic organizers refer to graphs that highlight the structure of textbook as a wholeand the internal organization, and make textbook writers’understanding of textbookcontent and layout design easier to be understood. In this way, we can analyze andevaluate if the organizational structure and the design of textbooks content are easyfor students to read and understand.The fifth part--- some thought about a few suggestions of textbook readability,why and how we should carry on the study on textbook readability.