So, I decided to use the readability index on a page from the children's picturebook entitled, "Stellaluna." It's the story of a baby fruit bat who loses her mother and is raised by birds. It's popular this time of year because of the bat - Halloween connection.
This is something I would read to kindergarteners or first graders. Keep in mind that they have the ability to access text that is read to them before they can actually read ( decode) the words. If I were teaching the text for decoding, this would be about 3rd grade level.
Here is one page that I typed into the readability calculator. Make a guess as to the reading level.
"One night, as Mother Bat followed the heavy scent of ripe fruit, an owl spied her. On silent wings the powerful bird swooped down upon the bats. Dodging and shrieking, Mother Bat tried to escape, but the owl struck again and again, knocking Stellaluna into the air. Her baby wings were as limp and useless as wet paper. Down, down she went, faster and faster, into the forest below."
Make a guess as to the grade level? Grade 6.0! I think these scores dramatically overestimate the difficulty of these texts! Just think, folks, this text from a children's picturebook has more difficult text than the Bible Teach book!
Interestingly, the one index that measured grade 3.2 and seems to be the most accurate to me is called the SMOG index. What does that stand for? The Standard Measure of Gobbledygook! Not kidding!
* source: Stellaluna by Janell Cannon, 1993. Please see the book to find out whether Stellaluna and Mother Bat were ever reunited!