THE SUITABILITY OF THE FRY AND SMOG READABILITY FORMULAE IN DETERMINING THE READABILITY OF FILIPINO TEXTS
Merry Ruth M. Gutierrez · The Normal Lights · 2015
The descriptive quantitative study evaluates English and Filipino passages by subjecting them to two readability formulae to determine the difficulty level and suitability of the texts to the intended reader level. The evaluation results show that among all the passages taken from the English textbooks, only 6.01% and 8.41% matched the target level based on Fry and SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook) formulae respectively. The majority of the passages in English did not get any results; thus rated as invalid. The SMOG evaluation showed that the majority of the passages rose higher by two or more levels than the intended reader level. Meanwhile, among all the Filipino passages evaluated, none matched the intended level; the majority was rated invalid, and many did not show any result based on the Fry readability formula. The SMOG evaluation showed that the majority of the passages stood higher by six to ten levels than the intended reader level. Results suggest that the existing readability formulae may not be applicable to passages in Filipino and Philippine English, and this calls for the development of a readability formula for Filipino texts in both languages.