Free Reading Age Checker for Schools
Paste a letter, newsletter or policy and get its reading age straight away, along with the school jargon and the long sentences that lose parents. Free, no sign-up, and nothing you paste leaves your device.
Paste your letter
A newsletter, a policy, an admissions page, a letter home. Nothing is uploaded, and nothing you paste is stored or sent anywhere.
How it reads
What to look at
What a reading age actually measures
A reading age is an estimate of how old someone needs to be to read a piece of writing comfortably first time. It is not a measure of how clever the reader is, and it is not a judgement on your writing. It is arithmetic, and it is driven by two things: how long your sentences are, and how many syllables your words have.
The Flesch Kincaid grade level
This readability test converts a document into a US school grade level. The formula weighs words per sentence and syllables per word. Add five to the grade level and you get the UK reading age, which is the number this checker shows you.
The Flesch reading ease test
The Flesch reading ease test is the same arithmetic pointed the other way, scored out of 100, where a higher number means easier. Plain English guidance usually asks for 60 or above. The two tests always agree, so use whichever number you find easier to hold in your head.
What is a good readability score for a school?
For anything going to parents, aim for a reading age of 9 to 12, or a reading ease score above 60. That is the range UK government guidance uses for writing aimed at the public. It sounds low. It is not about intelligence, it is about a parent reading your letter on a phone, in a queue, with a toddler pulling their arm.
Why school letters score badly
Schools write more to more people than almost any other organisation, and they do it under time pressure. Three habits push the grade level up.
Long sentences
This is the big one. A sentence past 25 words is hard to hold in your head, and school letters are full of them, usually because three pieces of news have been joined with commas. Splitting a long sentence in two does more for your readability score than any amount of word swapping.
Long words
Every extra syllable pushes the number up. Utilise costs more than use and says less. The checker will not tell you to write badly, it will tell you where the long words are clustered so you can decide.
The official register
Schools slip into officialese when the news is awkward. Please be advised that and it is imperative are the sound of someone bracing for a complaint. Say the thing.
The bit other readability tools miss
Every readability test in the world scores syllables. None of them know that EHCP, SENCO and age related expectations are invisible to a parent, because to a formula they are just short words. That is why a school letter can score a perfectly good readability score and still be incomprehensible.
This checker holds a dictionary of 64 terms: 35 pieces of education jargon and 29 official phrases, each with a plain English alternative. It tells you what to say instead, rather than only that something is wrong.
Jargon is not banned, it is just unexplained
Some of these words are the right word. You cannot always avoid saying EHCP. The rule that works is to say what it means the first time you use it in any document, then use the short form afterwards. The checker flags the term, you decide.
Reading age in Microsoft Word, and why it is not enough
Microsoft Word has readability statistics built in, switched on in the proofing options, and it will give you a Flesch Kincaid grade level and a reading ease score. It is a perfectly good place to start.
Two things it will not do. It will not tell you which sentences are the problem, so you are left rereading the whole document, and it knows nothing about school jargon. This checker shows you the exact sentences, marks up your text, and reads it as a parent would.
How to bring the number down
Start with the longest sentences
Open the long sentences tab and fix those first. Most split neatly at an and or a semicolon. This moves the number faster than anything else.
Put the point first
School letters often warm up for three sentences before the news. Parents skim. Say what has happened, then explain.
Use the active voice
Pupils will be provided with a packed lunch becomes we will give your child a packed lunch. Shorter, warmer, and it says who is doing it.
Read it aloud
No tool beats this. If you run out of breath, the sentence is too long. If you feel silly saying it, do not write it.
Common questions
What reading age should a school letter be?
Nine to twelve for anything going to all parents. Policies and governor documents can sit higher, because the audience is different, but the letter that goes home should be readable by everybody.
Is a low reading age patronising?
No. Plain writing is not simple writing. National newspapers write at a reading age of around 11 and nobody accuses them of talking down. Clear writing respects the reader’s time.
How accurate is the reading age?
It is an estimate. The formula counts syllables with a rule of thumb, so an unusual word here or there can nudge it. Use it to compare drafts and spot problems, not as a precise measurement. Anything above 21 is shown as 21 plus, because a reading age beyond that is not a real thing.
Does my text get uploaded?
No. The whole readability test runs in your browser. Nothing is sent, stored or seen by us, which matters when the letter is about an individual child.
Can I check a policy or a web page?
Yes. Paste any text. Policies usually score high and that is often fine, but the summary at the top of a policy should still be readable by a parent.
Is this readability checker free?
Completely. No account, no limit, no watermark. We build school websites and this is a useful thing to have on the internet.
Clear writing is half of a good school website
The other half is having the right things on it, kept current. Across 247 audits in 2025 only 6.5 percent of school websites were fully compliant, and the gaps are almost always in the detail.
Also free: our accessibility statement generator and our school image resizer.
