Readability scores are sometimes shown as scores on a scale of 0–100, with 0 hardest to read and 100 easiest. This was Flesch’s original approach to readability, based on word and sentence lengths. The scale of reading ease is inverse to the Flesch–Kincaid grade scores, so that lower scores represent the difficult end of the scale. Texts scoring:

• under 50 are ‘difficult’ or ‘very difficult’

• between 60 and 70 are ‘standard’

• above 80 are ‘easy’ or ‘very easy’.

The reading ease index offers a wide scale for discriminating between similar types of reading material. For example, research on the readability of 15 topics in 2.5 million articles from major online British and American newspapers found that sports reporting was the easiest to read, and politics the most difficult.