Fixing a High Reading Grade Level
A reading grade level estimates how many years of schooling someone needs to follow your text comfortably. The Readability Checker reports two of them, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and Gunning Fog, and a high figure on either means the page asks more of readers than it probably needs to.
The people who notice are visitors on a phone, readers in a hurry and anyone reading in a second language. This guide shows how to work out what is pushing your grade up, set a target that suits your audience, and lower it while keeping the page accurate and adult in tone.
- What a reading grade level actually means
- Why Flesch-Kincaid and Gunning Fog disagree
- Finding what is inflating your grade
- Choosing a sensible target
- The fix, step by step
- A worked example
- Lowering the grade without talking down
- Edge cases that skew the grade
- Keeping the grade down on new content
- Questions and answers
What a reading grade level actually means
Grade level formulas come from the United States, so the number is a US school grade. Grade 8 means text a typical 13 or 14 year old in the eighth year of school could read without strain. For a UK reader the easiest conversion is to add five to get a rough reading age, or add one to get the nearest year group in England and Wales.
| US grade | Approximate reading age | Nearest UK year group | Typical web content at this level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 to 6 | 10 to 11 | Years 6 to 7 | Public service information, safety instructions, help pages for everyone |
| 7 to 8 | 12 to 13 | Years 8 to 9 | Most consumer websites, local business pages, popular news |
| 9 to 10 | 14 to 15 | Years 10 to 11 | Quality broadsheet journalism, business blogs, general guides |
| 11 to 12 | 16 to 17 | Years 12 to 13 | Professional services, detailed comparison pages, specialist hobby content |
| 13 and above | 18 and over | University level | Academic papers, legal documents, technical specifications |
A grade is not a judgement of your readers' intelligence. Plenty of graduates prefer to read at grade 8 when they are scanning a web page on a train. The number simply tells you how much effort the surface of your text demands: how long the sentences are and how long the words are. Lower effort helps everyone, and it helps most the people who are tired, distracted, reading on a small screen or reading in a language they learned later in life.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines touch on this too. WCAG 2.2 success criterion 3.1.5, Reading Level, is at level AAA. It asks that when text needs a reading ability beyond lower secondary education, a simpler version or supplementary content is available. Few sites are required to meet AAA, but it shows the benchmark accessibility specialists use.
Why Flesch-Kincaid and Gunning Fog disagree
The Readability Checker gives you two grades because they weigh the evidence differently. Knowing how each one is built tells you which rewrite will move it.
| Formula | Calculation | What pushes it up |
|---|---|---|
| Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level | 0.39 × (words ÷ sentences) + 11.8 × (syllables ÷ words) − 15.59 | Mostly the average number of syllables per word, then sentence length |
| Gunning Fog | 0.4 × ((words ÷ sentences) + 100 × (complex words ÷ words)) | The percentage of words with three or more syllables, which it treats as hard, plus sentence length |
Look at the weights. In Flesch-Kincaid, a rise of 0.1 in average syllables per word adds more than a full grade, while adding one word to the average sentence adds only 0.39. Word length is the stronger lever. Gunning Fog does not count syllables across all words; it counts the share of long words. A page where one word in five has three or more syllables gets eight Fog points from vocabulary alone before sentence length is added.
So the two scores tell you different things when they diverge:
- Fog much higher than Flesch-Kincaid. The page has a lot of long words scattered through otherwise ordinary sentences. Vocabulary is the problem.
- Both high and close together. Sentences are long as well as wordy. Work on both levers.
- Flesch-Kincaid high, Fog moderate. Words are consistently a little long, often two syllables where one would do, or sentences are very long. Check average sentence length first.
Both formulas count mechanically. A syllable is estimated by rules about vowel groups rather than looked up in a dictionary, so different tools can give slightly different grades for the same text. Compare your page against itself over time in one tool, not against a score from another tool.
Finding what is inflating your grade
Before rewriting anything, find the passages doing the damage. A grade is an average, and a few dense paragraphs can lift the whole page by two or three grades.
- Run the page through the Readability Checker and note the Flesch-Kincaid grade, the Fog index and the average sentence length.
- Look at the flagged sentences. Most pages have a cluster of hard sentences in one or two places, usually the introduction, a "why choose us" section or a block copied from a brochure or a legal document.
- Paste sections separately. Copy each section into the checker on its own. The section with the highest grade is where your first hour of rewriting should go.
- Circle the long words. In the worst section, mark every word of three or more syllables. Sort them into three groups: words your readers need (the product name, a legal term, a medical term), long words with a common short alternative, and abstract nouns ending in -tion, -ment, -ance, -ity or -ness.
That last group is the one people miss. Abstract nouns made from verbs, which linguists call nominalisations, are long by nature and they drag other words in with them. "Make a decision about the implementation of" is eight words and fourteen syllables. "Decide how to implement" is four words and eight syllables, and it says the same thing.
| Abstract noun phrase | Verb form |
|---|---|
| carry out an assessment of | assess |
| provide confirmation that | confirm |
| the utilisation of | using |
| give consideration to | consider |
| undertake the completion of | complete, finish |
| make a recommendation | recommend |
| for the prevention of | to prevent, to stop |
| reach an agreement | agree |
Choosing a sensible target
There is no correct grade for every page. The right target depends on who reads the page and what they are trying to do. Use the table as a starting point and adjust once you have tested the page with real readers.
| Page type | Suggested Flesch-Kincaid target | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Home page, service pages for the public | Grade 7 to 9 | Mixed audience, mostly scanning on phones |
| Checkout, delivery, returns, contact pages | Grade 6 to 8 | People need to act correctly first time; confusion costs sales |
| Blog posts and how-to articles | Grade 8 to 10 | Readers expect some depth but are still skimming |
| Business-to-business service pages | Grade 9 to 11 | Professional readers, some necessary industry terms |
| Technical documentation, specifications | Grade 10 to 12, judged on prose only | Precise terms are unavoidable; code and part numbers distort the score |
| Terms, privacy notices, policies | As low as the legal meaning allows | Readers are entitled to understand what they agree to |
These ranges are working guidelines, not published standards, and nobody will penalise a page for missing them. What matters is the gap between your page and your audience. A plumber's emergency call-out page written at grade 14 has a real problem. A page for structural engineers written at grade 11 may be exactly right.
The fix, step by step
Step 1
Read both grade scores side by side
Run the page through the Readability Checker and write down the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, the Gunning Fog index and the average sentence length. If Fog is several points above Flesch-Kincaid, long words are the main problem and you should start with vocabulary. If both are high and close together, your sentences are long as well. This comparison decides which of the later steps will give you the biggest drop for the least rewriting.
Step 2
Score only the body text
Copy the main article or service text into the checker without the navigation, footer, cookie banner, product codes, addresses and tables of specifications. Those fragments confuse sentence detection and add long proper nouns that are not really reading difficulty. Score each major section separately as well as the whole, then rank the sections from hardest to easiest. Rewrite the hardest one first, because a single dense section can lift the grade for the entire page.
Step 3
Set a target grade for this page
Decide who the page is for and what they need to do, then choose a range. Public service and checkout pages suit roughly grade 6 to 8, general consumer pages grade 7 to 9, and professional pages grade 9 to 11. Write the target at the top of your draft. Stop rewriting once you are inside the range and the page reads naturally, because pushing lower than the audience needs often produces choppy, patronising text.
Step 4
Cut the words with three or more syllables
In the hardest section, mark every word of three or more syllables. Keep the ones your readers genuinely need, such as the product name or a legal term, and explain them on first use. Swap the rest for shorter everyday words: additional becomes extra, approximately becomes about, purchase becomes buy, sufficient becomes enough. Each swap lowers both grades, and Gunning Fog drops fastest because it counts these long words directly.
Step 5
Turn abstract nouns back into verbs
Search
the text for words ending in -tion, -ment, -ance and -ity
that hide an action. Rewrite phrases such as carry out an inspection of as inspect,
provide assistance with as help with, and make an application as apply.
The verb form is shorter, removes filler words such as of, an and the, and usually makes clear who is
doing what, which also lowers passive voice and sentence length at the same time.
Step 6
Bring the average sentence length down
If the average is above about 20 words, find the longest sentences and split each one where a new idea starts, usually at a semicolon, a dash, the word which or a second and. Aim for variety rather than uniform short sentences: mix some of six to ten words with others of fifteen to twenty. In Flesch-Kincaid each word removed from the average sentence lowers the grade by about 0.4, so a five word drop is worth two grades.
Step 7
Re-score and test with a real reader
Paste the revised text back into the Readability Checker and compare both grades with your target. Then read the page aloud, since anything you stumble over will trip readers too. Finally, ask someone who matches your audience to find one specific fact on the page and explain it back to you. If they can do that quickly and accurately, the grade is low enough, whatever the exact number says.
A worked example
Here is the opening of a fictional installer's page, Northfield Solar, written the way many service pages are.
Before
"Homeowners considering the installation of solar photovoltaic panels should undertake a comprehensive evaluation of their property's orientation, roof condition and anticipated electricity consumption prior to requesting quotations."
That is one sentence of 27 words. Fifteen of them have three or more syllables, which is more than half. It contains two abstract nouns doing a verb's job ("installation", "evaluation") and two formal phrases where plain ones exist ("prior to", "requesting quotations"). Both grade formulas put it far above university entrance level: by our own count Flesch-Kincaid comes out in the mid twenties.
After
"Before you ask for quotes, check three things. Which way does your roof face? Is it in good repair? And how much electricity do you use in a year? Installers will ask about all three."
Five sentences, 35 words, an average of seven words per sentence, and only two words ("electricity" and "installers") with three or more syllables. It kept the one technical word a homeowner really needs, dropped "photovoltaic" because "solar" already says it on a solar installer's site, and turned the evaluation into three questions the reader can answer.
What did not change
The rewrite is longer in words but quicker to read. It still gives the same advice, it still sounds like a competent business, and it does not explain what a roof is. Lowering the grade level is about removing effort that adds nothing, not about removing information.
Lowering the grade without talking down
Chasing a low number can make a page worse. These are the common mistakes and how to avoid them.
- Every sentence the same length. A page of identical eight word sentences reads like a list of commands. Keep a mix. Short sentences carry weight precisely because longer ones surround them.
- Vague words replacing precise ones. "Stuff", "things" and "issues" are short, but a reader learns less from them. If "condensation" is what you mean, say condensation. One precise long word beats three vague short ones.
- Explaining the obvious. Readers notice when they are being talked down to. Define terms your audience might not know; do not define terms everybody knows.
- Dropping necessary detail. A lower grade achieved by deleting prices, conditions or exceptions is not an improvement. Put detail in a list or a table instead of removing it.
- Baby talk in the voice. Exclamation marks, forced cheerfulness and emoji do not make text easier to read. Plain, calm, direct sentences do.
Edge cases that skew the grade
Some content scores badly for reasons that have nothing to do with how hard it is to read. Recognise these before you start rewriting good text.
- Brand, place and product names. "Loughborough" and "Hydrocoolant Pro" count as long words. You cannot change them, so exclude them from your judgement.
- Lists and headings without full stops. Many checkers treat a bulleted list with no punctuation as one enormous sentence, which inflates the grade. Score the prose on its own if a page is list heavy.
- Numbers, prices and units. Figures such as "£1,250" or "240V" can be counted as words with unusual syllable counts. Specification tables are better excluded.
- Quoted legal or regulatory text. If you must quote a clause word for word, leave it, and add a plain English summary above it.
- Very short pages. On a page of 80 words, two long sentences can swing the grade wildly. The score becomes more reliable as text gets longer.
- Languages other than English. The grade formulas were built for English. Welsh, French or German text on the same site needs a formula designed for that language, or human review.
Keeping the grade down on new content
- Write the target into your brief. Every commissioned page or post should state its audience and target grade range, so writers aim for it from the first draft.
- Keep a short-word list. Collect the long words your team overuses and their plain alternatives. Most organisations have fewer than thirty repeat offenders.
- Check before publishing, not after. Paste drafts into the Readability Checker as part of editing, alongside spelling and link checks.
- Watch templates and boilerplate. A dense standard paragraph that appears on fifty pages lifts the grade on all of them. Rewrite it once.
- Review your most visited pages twice a year. Use Google Search Console to find the pages with the most impressions and check their grades, since text drifts as different people edit it.
For the other measures that move alongside grade level, see the guides to a low Flesch Reading Ease score and sentences over 20 words.
1. What reading grade level should a website aim for?
For most pages aimed at the general public, a Flesch-Kincaid grade of roughly 7 to 9 is a sensible range, which corresponds to a reading age of about 12 to 14. Pages that people must act on, such as checkout, delivery and returns pages, can reasonably aim lower. Professional and technical pages can sit higher. These are working guidelines rather than official standards, so choose a range for your actual readers and test the page with them.
2. How do I convert a US grade level to a UK reading age?
Add five to the US grade to get an approximate reading age, so grade 8 is roughly a reading age of 13. To find the nearest year group in England and Wales, add one to the grade, so grade 8 is close to Year 9. These conversions are approximate because the formulas estimate difficulty from word and sentence length, not from any curriculum, and school systems do not line up exactly across countries.
3. Why is my Gunning Fog score so much higher than my Flesch-Kincaid grade?
Gunning Fog counts the share of words with three or more syllables and treats all of them as hard, while Flesch-Kincaid averages syllables across every word. A page with ordinary sentence lengths but many long words, such as professional, additional, organisation and requirements, gets a much higher Fog score. The gap is a strong hint that vocabulary, not sentence length, is your main problem, so start by replacing long words with shorter everyday ones.
4. Will lowering my reading grade level improve my Google rankings?
Google has not said it uses a readability formula or a grade level in ranking, so do not expect a lower number to move rankings directly. What Google does say is that it aims to reward helpful content written for people. Pages that visitors can read quickly and understand tend to meet that aim better. Treat any search improvement as an indirect result of serving readers well, not as the reason to change the grade.
5. Is a low grade level patronising to educated readers?
Not if it is done well. Highly educated readers still scan web pages quickly, often on a phone and in a hurry, and they appreciate text that gets to the point. Patronising writing comes from tone and from over-explaining obvious ideas, not from short words and clear sentences. Keep precise terms your audience uses, avoid a childish voice, and you can lower the grade without anyone feeling talked down to.
6. Why do different tools give different grade levels for the same text?
Each tool counts syllables and sentences with its own rules. Syllables are estimated from vowel patterns rather than looked up, so words such as area, created or business can be counted differently. Tools also disagree about whether headings, list items and abbreviations end a sentence, and whether navigation text is included. Use one tool consistently, compare the page against its own earlier score, and focus on the sentences the tool flags.
7. Should technical or legal pages have a low grade level too?
They should be as easy to read as their subject allows, which is usually higher than a consumer page. Keep the precise terms that carry legal or technical meaning, but explain them on first use and keep the surrounding sentences short and direct. For policies and terms, a plain English summary above the formal wording is a good compromise. This is general writing guidance, not legal advice, so check any legal text with a qualified adviser.
The Readability Checker calculates Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and Gunning Fog alongside Flesch Reading Ease, sentence and paragraph length, passive voice and jargon density, and flags the sentences that need attention.
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