Can they read it?

Readability refers to the relative difficulty of decoding the words. A number of formulas give a reasonable estimate of years of schooling needed to decode the words in written materials. For example, the new Third Edition (2007) of Beginnings Pregnancy Guide tests out at a fourth grade reading level. This makes Beginnings easily readable by 85% to 90% of the US population. We use the Flesch-Kincaid scale, designed for the US military to verify readability of field manuals' instructions to be read and used independently by individuals under stress. People of all literacy levels learn more from easy-to-read materials and prefer simpler rather than more complex health information (Ley 1976, Doak 1996).

FYI: You need a 10th grade reading level to understand this report.

Doak, LG, Doak C, Root J. Teaching Patients with Low Literacy Skills 2nd edition, Lippincott, Philadelphia 1996
Ley, P et.al. A method for decreasing patients’ medication errors Psychological Medicine (6) 1976

Readability Ratings for Beginnings Guides
(printer friendly pdf)

For more information on readability and its value in multi-cultural prenatal care, read this article by Sandra Smith, MPH, PhD & Virginia Gonzales:
Developing Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Health Education Materials - Studies in Communication Science:5 (2) 111-128 Dec 2005

         
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